Bucket List? No way!

I find myself with some 'away-from-game' time, two days this week and possibly two days next week. Unusual for me, though perhaps for unknown reasons it has it's purpose for being so. We shall see.

I'm not one for making those new year resolution lists. Or "bucket lists." /lol At my current 'state-of-the-union', I'd be lucky to maintain enough focus to get through one project at a time. It's all good anyway. It's kinda sorta like randoms. Just never know what's going to happen until you (I) get there.

Not that I don't have little things I try to accomplish, either in game or here, on the blog.

About the blog: I have been making some headway with sorta dressing it up a bit. Like adding that screenie of tree leaves from the Darkmoon Faire Isle as a background. It'll probably change from time to time though as different images grab my momentary attention. :) I've never really been satisfied with my attempts at an "About" page here. I really need to spend some time with that this week. Just don't hold your breath in the meantime! Then there's my blog reading lists...yes, multiple lists. They could stand a bit of cleaning up and organization. The one positive move I've made thus far, is to make sure I comment on at least one blog I regulary read each day. I enjoy reading so many WoW blogs, I should at least let authors know their efforts are appreciated. My thoughts at least.

In game: A whole other world of multiple lists of things I attempt from time to time. I really cannot remember the number of alts I've created over the years and all their specific purposes in mind at the time. Off-hand, I'd venture to say that the current number of characters is between 20 and 25. Many are also collecting dust atm, lol.

Aygaren is the main attention getter. He's just leveling way to fast though while practicing his skills enough to feel confident about entering random dungeons as a tank. I need to cut off his supply of XP for a bit. As soon as I figure out how to, anyway. Some of his practice has included going solo on early level dungeons, imagining a group with him. How he positions things and where a possible group may be positioned. Other practice has been with world questing, but gathering up 3-4 mobs at a time instead of just single targets.

Achievements: a source of constant distractions. As with collecting companion pets and sometimes mounts. These need to be channeled more effectively, somehow. Over the years, the sum of all characters would perhaps easily compile at least two Loremaster titles, but no single character holds said title. The same condition exists for pets, mounts and possibly all the faction exalted reps. One would think by now that I'd have at least one character with several desirable titles. Alas, I don't. It would be nice I think to finally rectify these conditions. Someday. What's that I hear? It's almost time for the Lunar Festival to begin?

So the cause for all this rambling on is due to my own distinct random ways of doing things. I have a lot of fun with the game for sure, which is good. Although, I would also like to be better at it overall. Someone needs to shoulder the responsibility for this change.

I'm looking at you, Aygaren.

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

Kaimara's Spree

Kiamara at level 85! Decked out in her newly crafted pvp gear.



Gotta love this hat!

After a long, uneventful time of sitting in Dalaran as a fresh 78, Kai got to spread her wings over the past week. Icecrown, for the most part, fell to her frost laden powers providing the push needed to start the Cataclysm zones. She hasn't fully completed any of them just yet. Mt. Hyjal has seen enough done though, to allow for the Firelands events. Deepholme and Uldum saw enough action to cover the mid-levels. Twilight Highlands has only just been opened. Kai opted though to begin her Molten Front assualt. She needs a truck load of embersilk cloth for her tailoring, so will be farming as much as possible along with the dailys. Kai had enough cloth saved up though, due to Sol and Khrox, that she was able to begin buying some of her patterns the moment she entered the Highlands.

Khrox and Cle have been on vacation during Kai's growth splurt. During that time, Ariannia had joined the family ranks, and Sol has been tip-toeing in and out of retirement. Sol is remaining true to his loner status, sporting only his Explorer title and related tabard. Up until the other day, the only sightings of him were fleeting, as he quickly did some transmute and mixed up batches of potions and flasks for the kids. But then he ventured out into Azeroth again, since Kilamdor is the zone location of his interests.

It started out quite innocently, with archaeology, and that long hunt for his Vial of the Sands receipe. But since Uldum holds rotation of dig sites with the whole of Kilamdor, it's a lot of traveling and time. He finally unearthed another common in Uldum, only to have his second rare search pop up, instead of the sought after canopic jar. /#$%^&!!! Oh well. There's still that thing about Loremaster to consider. Ugh!

Somewhere around the Shattering time, all of Sol's quests in Kilamdor got lost to the changes. Not a one to be found. The Eastern Kingdoms isn't much better off. The only things salvageable from those times were his various faction rep standings. All things considered, Loremaster is going to be one long haul, even with the newly designed quest lines. Even though he can fly through the zones and just drop in where needed. Even though he's level capped. The problem lies in me staying focused enough to travel with him. He did manage to get enough done in Darkshore to gain the companionship of Mr. Withers though. The archaeology dig sites still ring loud in his ears though. Oh, and he did send an order to Khrox for a beginning set of leather pvp gear, since his current pve set is sooooo outdated. Although he somehow managed to get himself phased out of some needed quests in Mt. Hyjal to open up the Molten Front, the Hero's Call board in SW was kind enough to offer him a Call of the Ancients quest. This would allow him to finish the two quest lines needed to open up the Firelands dailys. A stroke of luck(?), I would say.

"Go with honor, friend"

Off Day Post?

The Blizzard loading screen tooltip says something like, "Take everything in moderation, including World of Warcraft!" Hence, the creation of Tuesday maintenance days. Also known as: "You WILL give our servers a much needed break!!" I hear that even Ragnaros is complaining about the constant flow of raiders maiming, beating and killing their way towards his sanctum already.


In other news today. Sol has officially announced his retirement to his guild leader, and passed the family reins on to that fiesty dwarf hunter, Khrox. This didn't come as a surpirse to the guild, whom long expected the transition. There were a few laughs to go around, but overall there was a strong sense of understanding and support. Just some of the many things which make DUT such a great guild.

Khrox has boldly stepped up to the tasks at hand. He's proven to be a work-horse. A strong supporter of and leading contributor to the guild. He makes his rounds with a form of calculated precision and swiftness, while still hungering for more. Hmmm, 25 dailys? Is that all? He could easily double that without even breaking a sweat. Soloing and farming dungeons, hrumphhh. A walk in the park. Why just yesterday, a rather typical day for this BM hunter, 25/25 dailys, 90 achievement points, 30 honorable kills, 7 soloed dungeons, several hundred thousand points contributed towards guild level advancement, a good sized batch of DE fodder gathered for one guild mate and plans to assist another with some dungeon runs to gear and help level him. And this somewhat crazy dwarf was still looking for more to do?

A good part of this has to do with the class and spec, or so I think. BM dwarf hunters are just awesome, and only get better the more you learn how to play them. True though, any class/spec you play well seems and is awesome. It's finding that class/spec that "clicks" for you which can be a long journey constantly in progess.

When Khrox first came into the family, his intended roles were simply to provide some additional bank space, and dabble in the collection of rare pets. Those roles were his mainstay untill level 60, when he suddenly burst into maturity and started to really show his strengths. Before lvl 60, it was all fun and games. Outland and Northrend though were viewed as horrible grinds to run out of necessity. The straw that broke the camel's back though. Khrox hit up only those zones which were above level for him and stormed his way through them to reach 80. He left many things behind in his wake, undone. 80-85 was fun and challenging again. Four of the five zones were completed to achievement level, two of them were completely drained of quests. Along the way, mastering the class/spec was priority bound.

Well, I should think that I've babbled on enough for now. There is no real point to this post, nor is there any earth-shattering useful information to be had. If anything could possibly be considered useful here, it's that underlying thought about finding a class/spec that fits YOU, then don't forget to have fun mastering said class/spec. There are soooo many possibilities. And, don't be afraid of "Change." It is a constant entity, always around you.

Now get out there and reek havoc throughout Azeroth.......and beyond!

Regulary Schedueled Maintenance, errr, Post

Game day maintenance. Servers down most all day = usually means blog post day. Read: "maybe means a regular real post day."


I have been a bit of a slacker here lately, what with Firelands calling/demanding so much of my attention. Khrox has been going places and doing things which Sol has only dreamed of. The new Hyjal Firelands dailys taking the forefront. He has pretty much mastered the art of survival and faction war in Tol Barad, gained all the gear and such he set goals for, and now only farms commendations there for the drake mount.

Khrox has also been running some random dungeon norms, testing the waters with his refined beast master powers. Some pretty dumb mistakes were made, like jumping off a platform in Vortex Pinnacle......without clicking on the whirlwind thingy. But overall, he ruled the damage done charts and delivered some pretty good dps. With confidence levels on a high, heroic modes are the next targets. Hopefully, a good long look inside Zul Gurub. Today's story isn't about Khrox though. He's merely the force behind the lacks of posts here. Today, the focus falls on Sol.

Be warned: Personal thoughts ahead, lightly seasoned with game, and simmered.



Solitudeone

 As many regular readers will know, Sol was my first level capped character and main for the majority of my WoW lifetime. As a balanced spec'd Nelf Druid, he totally rocked solo play with only questing and moderate end of Wrath Wintergrasp appearances.



Where to go next?

 The worlds of Azeroth and beyond were good. Sol's 'playground' was expansive. Then, the Shattering and the age of 'guilds', decided to rock Sol's world. Sol did join a guild, but the realities of a new game in Azeroth set in rather hard for him. Class balanceing, buff this, nerf that, eclipse, new class mechanics, (the list goes on), all played a part in Sol's fall from grace. He no longer 'rocked Azeroth.'



One of the many scenic views Sol enjoys!



Always traveling........somewhere

 In all honesty though, it really wasn't the game changes that took this once great Druid down. After all, there are plenty of great players in Azeroth which prove daily, that boomkins still rock. Nope, not the game. The real shortcomings with Sol came from the faceless one punching the keyboard behind the scenes. This was devastating, to say the least. "I", was no longer good enough!

In times past here, I've taken a few light-hearted pokes at my "fragmented mind," and, shall we just say, "issues." (for lack of a possibly more appropriate term atm) Bottom line: I could no longer play Sol with any sense of efficientcy/compententcy. Sol's toolbox is a loaded bomb, and I could'nt find the fuse. /frustrated facepalm. With honor, Sol has quietly stepped aside, slipping into a state of semi-retirement within the Emerald Dream, providing what support he can for family and guild. Of the many adopted kids over his lifetime, two have aged well and strong. Of those two, Khrox now handles the familys' leadership role. Surely, he will have many stories to share with us along his journeys. In the meantime, Sol is taking a well deserved rest.


Solitude....as Solitude is

"Go with honor, friend."

It's Tuesday...

It's Tuesday...'nuff said. Time for random thoughts.


I spent the early part of this maintenance day researching some stuff I needed to know. Not the raid stuff sorts of things, (Sol still isn't there yet), but the sort of things I needed to know for the profession leveling Khrox and Kaimara are pushing. Prime example; Infinite Dust. Kai needs like 600 of these, where do they all come from? With Khroxs' leatherworking/skinning skills and Kai's enchanting/tailoring, the two can work together, at least to some extent, providing each other with mats, enchants or whatever. And we won't even get into the vast amounts of Borean Leather Khrox needs atm.

Both have recently started some dungeons with the encouragement of the guild leader. Sol had joined DUT a few months back, now both Khrox and Kai have become members. This is a good thing. Even though they are now 75 and 70 respectively, this is still a much earlier start than Sol had. Guild membership has been great for all three, and being able to experience this part of the game now is exciting. It's great being in a guild that is friendly and helpful to it's members. Without this atmosphere, I doubt if I would even have a chance at raiding. I have to admit though, both hunter and mage seem to be doing better than Sol.

UI- last I spoke of my UI, I had just installed Grid. This did not go well for me. Just couldn't get to show what I wanted to show and configuring it just didn't click as well. Gave up on it and installed Pitbull4 instead. "Happy Camper" time! Out of the box, I only needed a few placement changes to be up and running. Configuration is much easier for me, and I like the looks of everything soooo much more than Grid. Now, I'm not really putting Grid down. It's a great add-on which I know a lot of tanks and healers use. For me and all my dps alts though, Pitbull4 just turned out to work better.

And about that "raid" thing? Well, I guess we all have some sort of dream for this or that. With Sol, the dream recently grew to this: Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa's Rest-Legendary Staff. LOL, it's okay to dream. Right?

Daxxarri-blue poster-"It's actually easier to get started on the path to acquire this legendary; the journey itself is more difficult though. Regardless, players who have cleared the prior tier of raid content are the only ones eligible to begin the quest line -- any player who's part of a group which is capable of accomplishing that probably has a good shot at getting a staff for themselves."  (Source, post# 191)

Okay, so maybe there's limits to such lofty dreams.

In the meantime, Khrox has a little play time while waiting for a rare spawn. What better to do than help run up the feast count for a guild achievement?


Dinner Time!

Have fun everyone! ~Sol



Random-ness

Sometimes, it's the smallest things in-game that can kinda sorta make your day, or not.




Sol's new Panther Cub--sooooo cute!

 Sol hadn't been around Azeroth for something like 10 days or so, he was trying to figure out what he was going to do after his failures in Lost City and Grim Batol. The end result of that little break found Sol pretty much set on just being a behind the scenes support player. You know, farming and dailys, providing things like buff foods and flasks and potions for others. Perhaps helping younger guildies with quests and the such. After all, these are the sort of things he's really good at doing.


So, logged the ol' boy back in and give it a go again. We found the bulletin board lit up with a quest mark, funny, it's been empty for ages now. Grab it and run, hope for the best. Turns out to be one of those 'report to' thingies, go see someone in N. Stranglethorn. What a quest line this turned out to be! Filled with story/lore background, fighting unrulely monsters, and finishing off with a quest to go into the new Zul'Grub. Now obviously, Sol is neither geared or ready for this in any way. Simular to many other dungeon quests, it will sit in his quest log and gather dust for some time. One of those, 'maybe someday to do things.' BUT, the little panther cub at the end of that line was really the best 'made my day' surprise. He is just sooooo cute!

In other randomness, Sol did visit his trainer at the start of his journey back into Azeroth, and promptly re-specced. His main spec is still balance, there was just a shifting of talent points to hopefully build up his dps and spell powers a bit. (BTW, if you've got any better suggestions on talents and/or glyphs choices, feel free to drop them in a comment.) I think he's pretty well set up for now and just needs to aquire some better gear. The first day under this new spec arrangement did show some improvement. But what really 'made the day' in this area was the guild news he happened across.

Sol has always been supportive of the guild, and found new friendships with everyone there. Even after (imho) he was a real embarassment to the guild leader and mates over his pitiful dungeon preformance and ready to /gquit, he logged in to find that everyone was still supportive towards him. And to top it off, was the shocker that he had been promoted during his absense, from initiant to member. Heck, any other GL on this server most likely would have /gkicked him. But so not true with DUT. Sol was provided with info about training and learning things, and found himself just as welcome in the ranks as ever. Sol loves helping others when and where he can, and he is certainly blessed by Elune to have come into a guild where many of it's members are of the same mind. Friendly and helpful people all around. DUT isn't one of the top progression guilds on this server, but it certainly is THE BEST GUILD, imho. Maybe, just maybe, Sol's dream of getting into a raid group still has some hope. Time will tell, of coarse. And if it's going to happen anywhere, it will surely be with DUT.

So anyway, Sol is back to grinding out TB commendations for a new staff, running about 15 different dailys for rep points here and there, and still digging his way across those archaeology sites. Heck, got himself 13 rare artifacts now and still looking for more! Ehhh, maybe that sands vial will show up, eventually. And then there's always the pet collection to work on, or the mount collection (going for 100), and that "I don't know what I'm going to do" Loremaster.