Home Sweet Home

Last week the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic was:

What in WoW reminds you of your home?

Suggested by Sycro of Sycro Owl.

Unfortunately I was too ill to put words on the page then so I’m sneaking in late.

I’ve been fortunate to call many beautiful places home and so rather than picking one, I’m going to take you on a quick tour of my life via WoW locations.

As a child, we lived in Germany in amongst the mountains and the fairytale castles so Gilneas immediately springs to mind. Their accents might be an approximation of English but those barren crags, dark waters and ornate walled city reminds me more of the Germany of my childhood than it does Britain.

Then as a teenager, we moved to a far softer landscape surrounded by farm land in Scotland where you could see for miles, fields tapering down the sea. So in WoW terms I couldn’t imagine a better fit for Westfall and the rain in this particular shot is merely art mirroring life.

There was an interlude traveling to places which didn’t remind me of home at all, following by a stint of living in a city about as far removed from Stormwind as possible and now, I live idyllically less than 200 metres from the sea in a tiny fishing village. The best equivalent I think in WoW would have to be  Sri-la village perched as it is at the base of a cliff. Okay, we don’t have a waterfall or any giant statues but that hidden away feel persists. There is only one road down into the village, passing the sea front and for a moment everyone seems to pause just to look down over the houses scattered below.

This is the view less than a five minute walk from my front door and it makes me smile every time I see it.

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: The Levelling Game

The shared topic over at Blog Azeroth this week is:

I am sure this has been done years ago perhaps, but I felt I should ask again as it is particularly relevant to me now that I am back 

What sort of method do you use for levelling the multiple alts? Do you follow the same quest chains each time, do you avoid a certain quest section, do you only dungeon etc?? I am levelling my 5th to 90 now – from 85 and I just wondered how you guys do it??

I am not talking about the oddball levelling like just herbing to push yourself to the limit of insanity, but the more run of the mill levelling.

Suggested by Dragonray.

As it turns out I’m a creature of habit. For me leveling on the Alliance side goes much like this:

Mostly questing through favourite zones, for example I think every Alliance character I’ve ever rolled has done at least a part of Duskwood. Looking back, what is interesting is how my questing path has changed pre and post Cataclysm. For example up until the world was ripped asunder, I always went to the Thousand Needles and Tanaris and now I rarely do. Duskwood though is a constant and I’m still fond of Ashenvale.

A smidgen of Dungeons but again I err towards certain level brackets, for example Scholomance, Stratholme and Dire Maul East are rarely missed but if Gnomeregon is an option… count me out.

PvP also plays apart especially from level 45 upwards where AV is available. If Alterac Valley is the Call to Arms whilst I’m leveling a character, I’ll usually stop doing everything else and just PvP.

Finally when I get tired of the above, I meander across Azeroth pet battling using the flight time to chat to people on Real ID, twitter or to browse the internet.

 

 

It was the best of times – A Blog Azeroth Shared Topic

The Shared Blog topic over at Blog Azeroth this week is as follows:

I know we heard the word “Throwback” many times around the net, but as part of World of warcraft expansions. I want to know what is the best expansion in game that really highlights a lot of your accomplishments in game especially that the new upcoming expansion is coming its nice to look back it could be the one when you started playing with your main character, getting a cool mount, being in a great guild, or your very first screenshot in game if you still have it or being in PvP battlegrounds or Arenas, even your raiding experiences back in BC or PRE-BC, Cataclysm, etc. You can be creative how you want to do this it could be storyline, poem, screenshots up to you it is pretty much a throwback experiences you can share to everyone.

Suggested by Amerence.

For me this has to be a toss up between the original game and Wrath.

When I first started playing, it wasn’t long before I found myself in a hardcore guild fighting for and indeed winning server firsts on everything from Vael onwards all the way to Naxxramas mark 1. Despite there being over 40 of us, despite there being a fair number of giant egos and quite a few times when I would have liked to kill at least one person in the guild, there was also a sense of pride in our guildtag. We played on a PvP server and it was more often than not a case of attack one and get swarmed by the rest of the guild.

Also of course there was the newness factor, I’d never ever played anything multi player besides first person shooters across a LAN with friends so suddenly raiding with 39 other people from across Europe including Russians from Vladivostok who would get up early to raid before work felt amazing.

Getting my Benediction as the second Priest on our then server and of course getting the only C’thun kill  (no one else killed him until the Burning Crusade) naturally rank high on my list of things achieved in the days before “achievements” but it was the silly things which stand out more. The long drawn out fights between Southshore and Tarren Mill, getting rank on my little Warlock before she was level 60 when the pvp system first came out and of course later on, same server Alterac valleys. The conversations in Priest chat, like the one which put me off eating seaweed for a very long time and doing things like drunken LBRS runs with 3 dpsers all desperately trying to beat each other by pulling as much as possible and no tank these are the things which stand out.

Selling the clothes off my back to buy my first mini pet because I hadn’t found the auction house and 40 silver was a lot of money back then, to me at least. Not to mention many of my favourite outfits are based around gear which has been available since the start, the Devout set, the Wildheart set and the Robes of the Guardian Saint are three examples which quickly spring to mind.

Wrath didn’t have the newness factor but it had several elements I enjoyed. First up a proper end boss, demons really aren’t my thing and the Sunwell didn’t exactly have the happiest of memories for me. Then there was Ulduar, quite possibly my favourite raiding instance of the entire game. As with the original game I was raiding at a fairly high end level and enjoyed completing for things like server firsts and also ticking off what were then hard achievements. When we got A Tribute to Insanity, it felt like killing C’thun all over again especially given that we usually wiped to stupid on something. It also brought me my favorite 5 man of all time, the Halls of Reflection. Call me weird if you want, but I rather like being chased through frozen halls by a man with a very large sword (and based on what I found when I went and read WoW fan fiction with the  mature filter turned off) I’m apparently not alone.

There was the nakedness bug

and Gnomes in the fish feasts. I got my one and only legendary, although I have to admit the lack of RP was slightly disappointing even though some of my guild kindly tried to improvise for me. There were flying carpets and real story telling. The Wrathgate chain for example still makes me teary eyed.

Ultimately though, there has been one constant to my journey across Azeroth.

Mr Harpy and given that he’s currently in the process of leveling warrior number 3, this shot of us snuggling on a beach in Silverpine way back when our adventure was just starting seemed appropriate. I’ve enjoyed the vast majority of my time spent exploring this strange new world and am looking forward to everything that this new expansion brings.

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.

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: Vanity thy name is…..

World of Warcraft is known to have a lot of vanity items that you can collect from your adventures and in this expansion Blizzard introduced even more of these silly cosmetic items into the game.

This week’s Shared Topic is, “What is your favorite vanity item in World of Warcraft?”

Suggested by Noahdeer.

I struggled on this one as there is just so much choice out there. Therefore I’m going to cheat slightly and pick the favourite items of a few of my favourite characters.

Up first, appropriately it’s my very first character and Dartol’s rod of Transformation.

I usually hate not finishing quest chains but in this particular case, I just couldn’t hand it in. Furbolg forever!

For Sprout, her favourite vanity items are all ones which can be put to good use in PvP, in terms of undermining your opponents.

Nothing says you just lost than a naked Gnome dancing in a clam shell over your corpse.

Other favourites include the Romantic Picnic Basket, perfect for a spot of “camping” in the countryside with a loved one, the giant golden banana (although I’m still disappointed that this doesn’t make people who walk into it, trip up) and the Scarecrow from the Tillers.

Basically, I love semi useless clutter and have bags full of the stuff.

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: Hoarding and Me

The Blog Azeroth Shared Topic this week is one dear to my little hoarding heart.

World of Warcraft has added many different items for players to collect, whether it be collecting pets, mounts, transmog gear or knickknacks about the lore. This week’s topic asks what you do collect in the game and what is your prized item from that collection?

Suggested by Noahdeer of Be MoP.

I have a slight tendency to collect all things but if I break my various bits and bobs down, it probably comes out like this:

1. Gear with a primary focus on staves. This is my very first Druid, Briarrose with her Undead slaying skirt and her Grand Marshal’s stave. In fact even though I’ve hadn’t really used a staff on any end-game character since the off-hand enchant was introduced, I have bags full of them.

Erinys being my main for so long has the bulk of my clothes and weapons collection but Sprout hasn’t done too badly herself, especially with old dungeon runs. That said, my prized item of gear has to be my Benediction. I was the 2nd Priest on my then server to complete it and it has a lot of wonderful memories both of that sense of satisfaction of killing the bosses back in my first raiding days but also of the people I played along side who helped me farm for the Eye of Shadow all night.

2. Things to gank with. Gathered from a variety of sources, some from rares and some from festivals for example but over all, little silly things to brighten up battlegrounds and frustrate the enemy.

Here we can see the results of the Gin’ji knife set (that pile of meat I’m sat on happens to be Panda) and my romantic picnic basket. Oh and before anyone assumes I’m a hateful ganker, my little monk arrived in Arathi en route to the Scarlet Monastery to be greeted by this:

Okay anyone with a fragment of a brain cell may have questioned why I stayed whilst being spammed by that and personally the /chicken and /laugh emotes would have definitely made me nervous had I been in their shoes but …. they forgot the cardinal rule of world pvp, there is always a bigger fish somewhere in the shadows.

I’m tempted to say that the knife set is my favourite of these items, simply because I’d hate it to be used on me. The fact that you can use it on your own faction is a plus point too.

3. Pets/Mounts

My very first WoW pet cost me the shirt off my back, quite literally as I hadn’t found the auction house at the point but desperately wanted to buy a cat off the crazy lady with cleaver. Since then, I’ve done my best to acquire a decent pet collection. I’m also well on my way to 150 mounts, which I freely admit isn’t many by some standards but given that all my characters seem to ride the same 4 or 5 is still a little excessive.

The favourite here would be a toss up between Spike my Iron-bound protodrake (lots of happy memories of frying dwarves week in week out) and my Hyacinth Macaw, a gift from Mr Harpy who got lucky with the drop in Vanilla whilst camping some Horde in STV.

4. Achievement points. Unfortunately I’m one of those people who when shown a list has a pathetic urge to tick everything off it.

I’m also quite partial to collecting grey items, especially the ones you get from pick pocketing so have quite a few Gnome Effigies and Rag Dolls kicking around in my bank just waiting to be used for something. One day I just know they will come in handy!

Favoritism

This week, Matty from Sugar and Blood provided the Blog Azeroth Shared Topic:

A few weeks ago, I noticed logging onto some characters seemed to be more irksome than others, it dawned on me that there were a few who never, ever seemed to be a chore to play. My question is, (and yes, you need to have more than one character over level 1) which of your characters do you always look forward to “seeing?” But the real question is why? Perhaps think of this from a role playing perspective, that this character has a personality, play style and demeanor that inevitably just works. I’d love to meet them!

This wasn’t even a question I needed to think about, I knew the answer would be Sprout. I wasn’t particularly keen on Gnomes when I first started playing WoW and certainly could never see myself playing one. I wanted to play a character more like myself in Real Life than a pint sized giggling psychopath (although come to think it, remove the height restriction and ……. ). I found the males creepy and the females too doll-like but then Blizzard dropped a bombshell. When they announced Gnome Priests I knew I was going to have to dabble on the Gnomeside and somehow I fell in love.

The voiced animations are awesome, yelling /flee in a crowded bunker works so much better on a Gnome than it does on any other race, as does the /chicken emote. Sprout is happy all of the time and by extension, she makes me happy when I play her. She’s giggly and smiley and is guaranteed to find fun side in anything, even four hour statemate Alterac Valley games against the German realms. Plus, the fact that most people admit to hate being killed by Gnomes adds a certain sweetness to the pie.

Obviously her being a Priest, the class I’m most comfortable on helps a great deal. I know her abilities and her keybinds like the back of my hand. Throw me into a pitched pvp battle and I’d far rather be on Sprout than say my new Monk or a melee of any kind but she brings something to the table that my other Priests lack.

In short, she’s the me I’d like to be. Happy to be alive, carefree and not in the slightest bothered by authority. Sprout doesn’t suffer from depression or obsess about her work, Sprout isn’t a perfectionist, she doesn’t care whether she kills stylishly as long as they’re dead. She bounces through life protected by her shields and an army of mini pets.

All I want for Winter Veil is……

A couple of weeks ago the Blog Azeroth shared topic was

Winter Veil is around the corner and it’s time to sit upon Greatfather Winter’s lap and answer the important question, “What do you want for Winter Veil?” Is it that expensive grand expedition yak? a nice transmog custom outfit? or a Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock?

What is on your Winter Veil wishlist?

suggested by Noahdeer.

Having been both a good little Gnome and a good hard working girl, I’d like my stocking to divulge the following this Winter Veil.

1. Mr Bigglesworth. As a little girl, I had my own pet cemetery moments (at least in the sense of wishing that the dead didn’t have to stay dead) and even now I still in my deepest dreams find myself wishing for undead pets. Since I suspect my childhood dog, his bones bleached white isn’t going to come tapping down the corridor, I’ll take Mr Bigglesworth as a substitute.
2. An end to Dailies. Yes I get the whole “don’t do them” argument but they are there sitting in quest logs and with reputation bars not maxed laughing at me.
3. More time to actually play. What with my commute and with my work load, time outside work not spent asleep is remarkably precious right now. At this time of year especially, there are so many other demands on those fleeting moments that I’m struggling to find any time at all in Azeroth.
4. This one basically leads on from 3. Ideally if every thing goes according to plan, in the new year, we’ll smash the nasty commute into little pieces which then will hopefully allow me much more time to do other things like finish the 100 plus drafts sitting waiting to be finalized, to possibly find a guild to do some raiding with and to complete all the other little projects sitting half done, like my Tree of Life cushion.
5. Come up with a Winter transmogrification for Sprout who is still wearing a semi matching set of PvP and PvE gear all collected from MoP and held together by a tabard of all things.

Of course I wouldn’t say no to “Peace on Azeroth and Goodwill to all Gnomes” either. Garrosh’s bloody and battered head in my stocking would be greatly appreciated too.

Blog Azeroth Shared Topic: The Rules of Me

R is for Rules amongst many other things.

I almost passed on last week’s shared topic, suggested by Matty, partly because I felt there are some potential grey areas in my rule set but after giving the matter some careful consideration I realised if you bend, you tend not to break.

So without further ado,

The Rules of Me: What are your personal rules you wish others would know about you?

1. Whether it’s professionally or personally, I expect honesty from others and in the spirit of my Grandmothers I give what I get in return. One of these days the people I deal with in a professional capacity are going to catch on to this and my life will become so much simpler.

2. As far as PvP is concerned I hate the other faction with a passion usually reserved for inconsiderate drivers (yes, you….. the idiots who hog the “overtaking” lane for 20 miles doing 30 in a 70 because you can’t handle changing lane and you plan on turning right at some nebulous point in the future) and soggy Brussels sprouts. I will put my faction first and if that means healing that jerk who is constantly mouthing off on the realm forums and that everyone hates rather than let some annoying spit spamming male Goblin Hunter (you know who you are….) kill him, well sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

3. The phrase “Lose fast” turns me into a monster determined to ensure that we do the opposite. Losing five nil, no problem I’ll go and tag a couple of nodes behind their back to prolong the agony. 2 flag caps down and being graveyard camped, utter that phrase and I’ll be hiding on their roof with their flag or killing their flag carrier who is unescorted because the rest of his team are sitting on the corpses of the “lose fast” brigade. I might be on the aggressive side of competitive but I don’t understand the mentality of people who participate in games which keep score without trying to win.

4. I’m fiercely loyal to those I consider friends and of course to my family as annoying as they are. In fact the vast majority of times I’ve lost my temper in-game have been because of insults or blame wrongly apportioned to those I care about (blame rightly apportioned is a completely different story :p).

5. I’m a thousand times harder on myself than anyone else could ever be. Thus attempting to be mean to me is basically wasting your time. My inner demons have already gleefully yelled it in my head whilst leaping up and down on what’s left of my self respect.

We all scream for icecream: A Blog Azeroth Shared Topic

The shared topic this weekend is all about icecream,

It would not be uncommon to hear about the initial release of World of Warcraft as Vanilla or Classic. In terms of ice cream or gelato (which is my preference), Vanilla was once considered the most popular flavour of it’s time. So if Vanilla represents Classic WoW, what flavours could represent the following expansions?

Suggested by Cymre.

I struggled a bit with this, going backwards and forwards through the freezer section trying to make up my mind.

The Burning Crusade –  Rocky Road Icecream

When we arrive in the Outlands, it’s most definitely a rocky road through Hellfire and onwards into the other zones. Everything is crumbling just like the crushed biscuits and there are definite soft and gooey spots to represent the marshmallows, the Black Temple for example was a favourite of mine. Unfortunately, just as with Rocky Road the icecream, there are also glacé cherries like Lady Vash’j, the bits you want to avoid but can’t really.

The Wrath of the Lich King – Honey Lavender Icecream

Slightly sickly with a touch of purple is how I’d best characterise Wrath. Whilst Ulduar and the revision of Naxxamas were fine, as is honey lavender icecream at least for the first few mouthfuls, as the expansion wore on, the vomit inducing stickiness increased. By the time Cataclysm rolled around, I suspect most of us were happy to wash our mouths out with something new.

 

Cataclysm – Lemon Icecream

With a hint of sourness but a refreshing after taste, Cataclysm cleansed the palate from the aftermath of Wrath (and the tournament shenanigans in particular). It might not have been the most popular expansion yet but it brought a revamp to Azeroth which was needed.

Mists of Pandaria – Margarita Icecream

Whilst we were in San Miguel de Allende, I had the most amazing Margarita icecream. There was just a bite of tequila on your tongue before it softened into the taste of lime and sugar. I could have eaten the entire tub it was so beautiful and standing on the cusp of MoP, that’s how I see the forthcoming expansion. It had that same freshness, that same excitement on the tastebuds and that same sense of wonder I feel now as I prepare to step into Pandaria for the first time (beta not withstanding).