The Night Before

'Twas the night before the patch. The day's game play is over, the nightly reading done. Soooo,


all things look like a go for Tuesday maintenance to be the long awaited 4.3 patch. It's been coming for some time now, and players everywhere have had opportunities to prepare for it in each of their ways. There's even been a number of blog posts around the community with very sound advice as to how to prepare for this patch release. It's all good, dear reader.

I, like many others, sorted through all this advice gleeming what I thought useful for my several level capped characters (and those close to cap). This time around though, I've taken a somewhat different approach. Such as: Khrox (the BM hunter/pvp'er) really should have spent some time capping out his honor/conquest points in preperation. Smart thing to do, which he didn't do. Instead, he just lazed around the past several weeks doing nothing more than /gquit the pvp guild he was in. Oh, he has a chunk of hp's, and a handful of conquest (which will end up converted) stored up. Any extra effort though seemed worthless for him. We'll get to why in a minute or so.

Cle was also in that same guild, key word, was. He's not quite level capped yet though so he's not really at any loss. Kaimara is in a different guild, though hasn't been active enough with them, or even with them that long. Her stance is one of those, "let's wait and see how it goes." The core of this matter with the three of them is this: the server they call home.

I've been on that server since about the beginning of time (my time). I've seen it's up's and down's. You can actually feel the differences each time the population rises and falls. The server is in a down-trend at this time. IMO, a very deep down-trend, and it's been going on for some time. I won't bore you with all my personal thoughts on this. Suffice it to say, that for me, the server just hasn't been a fun place to play for months. Character transfer is not an option, so everyone justs sits and waits it out.

No problem really. I do have characters spread across enough servers to stay active and enjoy the game. None of them though, are any where near end-game content, and that's okay as well. Plenty to do, lots of options. Enter from stage left, the Great Horde Project!

Being an Alliance player for so long prompted me to spread wings and see things from the opposite factions' eyes. Yep, more story and lore time, YAY! After several server hit and runs, I finally settled on one which seems to viable enough for this project. Started out with a Troll hunter, since I've already got a good dose of Undead somewhere else. Troll hunter didn't really like being all alone though, so after a bit of leveling, he aquired a Tauren pally companion (I also wanted to try tanking). Things are going good so far, I can now see through Tauren eyes. Then, along came this stray Goblin hunter. While not too far behind, there followed an Orc mage. Strange though, the Orc is the only one who don't seem to have some form of dislike/distrust for Garrosh.

So that's where I'm at in game. I would really like to raise several of these Horde characters to cap and experience their full story. I'm sure that after the patch has been out for a few days and the initial dust settles, Khrox and company will jump into their battlegrounds for a bit. In the meantime, the young Horde's are at the beginning of their journey.

IntPiPoMo: Deepholm

Advisory! Image heavy post ahead. Best viewed on site.


This will be my last offering for Angelya's IntPiPoMo Challenge. This was a really fun and interesting challenge to do. Seeing the game through other peoples' eyes always seems to foster a rush of memories and reminders of your own first experiences around Azeroth. I have really enjoyed going around our blogging community. There has been such an out-pouring of creative and beautiful screenshots. As a sometime screenie collecter myself, this challenge has been like a child's trip to a large candy store filled with worldly chocolates. Kk, enough babble.

Sol sent word out to the kids in hopes that one of them might be in the middle of any of his favorite world zones. (he has quite a few favorites) With so many kids about, his outlook was pretty good. Sure enough, Kaimara was padding her reputation stash with Therazane, and was flitting about Deepholm with camera in bag.



Alabaster Shelf



Alliance Airship



Storm's Fury crash site



Crimson Expanse



The Fractured Front



Needlerock Chasm



Strange things appear out of nowhere



The Pale Roost



First they're whole....



...then they're not



Stonecore: many an adventurer has braved this place.



Entrance to Therazanes' Throne



Temple of the Earth



Top of the Temple



Temple of the Earth from above.



Looking up and away from the Temple

"Thanks" goes out to Angelya, for creating this challenge.

IntPiPoMo: Memory Lane

Both the month and Angelya's Challenge are nearing their end. View more participating bloggers here.

It's been something of a quiet night for me, so I've been out and about the WoW blogging community reading stories. Just sort of chillin' out. During one of these most pleasurable reads, I fell into thoughts of time in game which has passed into history. Hence, this trip down Memory Lane.

During Sol's tour of duty in WotLK, he spent an awful amount of time fishing for this mount. That meant at least a half-hour out of every day of game play, for nearly the total expansion time. That's right, almost the total time of the xpac. As I recall, it was only two or three days before Cataclysm, when he finally came into his own turtle mount. To this day though, the Giant Sewer Rat still eludes him.

Sol did not do this mount grind at level, although it was still the 'old school' grind before all the zone and quest re-vamps. He holds a great amount of respect for those before him who accomplished this feat, at level.

Being the first real character to actually level cap, Sol spent many of his early years simply solo questing. He wasn't all that good at dungeons or battlegrounds, and he didn't really understand that faction reps held good rewards. So it came to be that this Albino Drake is the only drake within his stable of mounts. He earned it in later life out of a love for collecting things.

Sol was a real loner, and still clings to those roots even today. His real home is in Darnassas, and can often be found comtemplating conditions of the world at the Temple of the Moon.

When Sol goes off on various adventures, he can easily find the most secluded of places to camp out for the night.

Sol missed out on many adventures, mostly due to his solitary ways. Kaimara was gracious enough though to bring home every detail of the Wrathgate experience.

Sol is, The Explorer. He has seen many different worlds, before and after.

Everyone has their memories of times past, and thoughts of times present. Let alone, speculations over things which are yet to come. Anyway you look at it though, World of Warcraft is still a great game, still offering so many different ways to play. I still discover new things each time I enter Azeroth.

I hope you've enjoyed Sol's little side-trip down Memory Lane. I trust that it has prompted even more of your own.   ~Sol~

Thank You Bloggers!

I'm pretty much in the same boat as many bloggers have already spoken of. The one where, "I read so many great blogs, I fear leaving someone out if I attempt to specifically thank everyone." I can attest to the reality of truth in that statement. None-the-less, Amerence set forth a terrific Blog Azeroth Thanksgiving Event, which I whole-heartedly embrace for all it's "warmth and giving.".


I've been reading World of Warcraft blogs, probably near five years now.(?) Silently soaking in all the game knowledge from the theorycrafters, class specialists, long time gamers in general. The story writers, the humorous out-takes and cartoonists. Coupled with everyone's personal thoughts along the way on just about anything to do with the game, and even the game mixed with real life. There's the independant writers, team and guild writers, and even those who try to keep track of all the blogs available within the warcraft blog community. The list is rather abundant and bountiful, to say the least.

Although the list is rather large, I am truly thankful for all the creative, inspiring and captivating bloggers in the community. Over all my years of game time you've (albeit, without knowledge) helped me progress in game with your tips, stratagies and how-to's. You've laid the ground-work for me to become a reasonably successful player on many different characters. You've kept my spirits up when the game was going sour and pixil deaths were many. Your encouragement and support did not pass by unseen. Thank You!

I am also thankful for all the "fun" blogs, as I call them. I've come to know bloggers through their game art, cartoons and quite humorous "raid" graphs. This highly creative atmosphere extended to even more blogs as authors were writing stories with and about warcraft characters. Such wonderful stories which always had me looking for their continuing sagas and adventures each night. You've brightened many a night for me with your art and writings. Thank You!

Some say that all good things must come to an end, and to some extent I suppose there is truth to that, unfortunately. The WoW blogging community has certainly seen some great authors close their blog doors. I've seen a few of these passings, always with a certain amount of sadness within. I've read of others by way of bloggers who knew of them, and there was a sadness over what I missed without knowing. This is kind of a calm sadness though. It is out-weighed by the feelings of being thankful for the time I was able to enjoy thier writings. However long or short that time was, they were treasures I remember well. They came, they blogged, and left their mark. Thank You!

One semi-dark day way back when, the sun poked through the clouds and cast sparkles of dancing light on the tail end of some misty rain drops. I stumbled into this World of Warcraft community of bloggers, pitched a tent and made a home of it. I'm very thankful for that day. For through their blogs, I've come to know some really amazing people by way of their writings, their art, and their very special way of "giving." To each and every one, "Thank You!"




"Thank You!"
World of Warcraft Bloggers



IntPiPoMo-group four

Here we are with the fouth set of screenshots for the IntPiPoMo Challenge.(clicky for details) And you can find a list of more blogger participants here.  Hope everyone is having as much fun seeing all the beautiful screenshots around the community.




Last Rites for a honored grandmother



The Tauren suffered many losses.





Overlooking Bloodhoof Village



Bloodelve welcoming in Sunfury Spire



Court of the Sun



His first look at Org

Here's hoping everyone had a great Thursday and/or a Happy Thanksgiving! ~Sol

IntPiPoMo # 3

This is the third set of the IntPiPoMo Challenge, click the link for details.


Esie started her day with the intention of discovery in mind. It took awhile, a long while. She got side-tracked doing some of the Pilgrims' Bounty achievements. As good an excuse as any to be bouncing all around Azeroth!



Hmmmm, not a good day for fishing?



The Faerie Circle from above.



Waiting for the faeries'



Hmmm, not a good day for flying either.



The Seer's Library-Esie loves books.



Esie meets a younger Hellscream



Khrox' first meeting with Thrall

Easter eggs and warchiefs. There is so much left to be discovered. Take time to enjoy every aspect of the game. You just never know what might show itself.

Enjoy your game!  ~Sol

Almost a day off!

Monday night and the usual. I'm checking the service forum to see about schedualed maintenance. Rolling restarts, again.


What with the current PvP season close to an end now, and the Deathwing patch release most likely as soon or nearby, my Alliance mains have been resting up. I've been off for a time playing some Horde characters, learning about lore and things from their perspective. This isn't just some little whim or such. I fully intend to level cap a couple of "Hordies." I'm also going through several realm servers to see which will work out the best for this project. And if that's not enough to do, I really should take a look and clean house a bit on my regular servers. You guessed it, bank alts all over the place, about to be out of work.

Back to my new Horde project though. So far, on one PvE/neutral server, there are three. Two Undead (spriest and mage), and one Troll hunter. In the beginning of this I did the usual scientific stuff for selecting which races to play, wholly based upon what I thought I liked or disliked after fighting so many of them on PvP servers. Belfs, no way, ever. Orcs, maybe after I've been everywhere else. DK's of any sort, no, I like leveling. Goblins, tried one once, gone at level 8. Tauren, a pretty fair possibility, may yet happen. Anyway, the lore and the history behind Undead and Troll won out as starters. That's about as scientific as I get anymore.

About the server choices. Mostly shots in the dark on those picks. I did take some time to check out various realm populations and activity ratios. Recalled a few server names I've seen floating around the WoW blog community, and picked three to start with. One is already down, just didn't seem to be a compatable fit with me. My other choice for now has a lone Troll hunter started, he just made level 11 today.

There are a lot of choices to make with this little project of mine. And it seems like there is always something that needs to be done. Trying to level new characters on unknown servers with no mains to watch over or help them out, sheeeze!! How the heck did I ever get through all this waaay back when I first came into this game? A six-slot bag drops from a mob and I practically squee with delight! And that really great NPC over there actually gave me a silver piece for killing 20 tallstriders to collect 6 beaks. He was so nice about it. Even provided me with another repetitive kill quest. Good thing though, I can skin all these beasties for my own use. He's just gonna have to up the payment though. . . I NEED TRAINING!!!

Decisions, decisions. /sigh It's been quite interesting so far, and fun. I really enjoyed the Undead starter quests. Lots of story line going on there. The Troll starter quests, well, they just seemed to be a bit of a let down after doing the Undead. You get shoved off into "For the Horde" quests rather quickly, to quick in my opinion. I'm hoping more of their history and lore shows up pretty soon. I would like to have seen a little more involvement with Vol'jin, than there was. Probably just me though. I'm sure the two little Troll hunters will find their way soon enough.

That about wraps up this Monday night of random thoughts. If you're feeling a bit helpful though and would like to suggest a realm server for my little project, please, feel free to do so in the comments. My thoughts about a server are simple. Either Eastern or Central US time zones (I'm eastern), PvE/neutral (so I can flag for PvP at will). Relatively faction balance/activity. My general play time, is day time, along with scattered opportunities of late afternoons and weekends. Okay, TMI. lol. But if you happen to have a suggestion go ahead and mention it.

Enjoy your game! ~Sol

IntPiPoMo-2

This is the second set of Angelya's IntPiPoMo Challenge. You can get all the details by using the link.


Crazzal had to take a bit of a side-trip today, to Undercity. He had never been so far from home before, although he had heard many stories about the other land across the great waters. The promise of a bountiful feast being available was enough incentive for him to pack his bag for travel. He did manage to take a small tour and gather some tourist pics for us.

Entry to Undercity

Undercity's Bountiful Feast

All the flying machines come here.



There were so many Undead going about, Crazzal was surprised to find a cemetary in Brill.

 

Tarren Mill-stories of the past filled his ears.



Hammerfall-Crazzal found this zone quite interesting for some reason.

Until next we meet,

Enjoy your game!
~Sol



 

IntPiPoMo

IntPiPoMo, (International Picture Posting Month) is the challenge started by Angelya over at Revive and Rejuvenate. The challenge actually started early on this month, but there are enough days left that you could possibly finish. Except of coarse, for me. LOL, I get distracted so easily. /sigh

But I do love me some screenies so I'm going to have a go at it. You can still get in on the fun and gather all the details at this post.

So on to my first posting. Screenies 1-5: Durotar, as seen through the eyes of a young Troll.

Darkspear Training Grounds

Sen'jin Village

Sunset at Sen'jin Village

At rest in The Valley of Honor-Org

Ok, so the last one for today is slightly outside of Durotan. But Crazzal did enjoy the view!

High above Ratchet

I've really been enjoying the IntPiPoMo posts I've seen around the community. So hop on it to the challange. I'd love seeing your screenies.
~Sol~