Sixth, and late as usual, lol

It's very late in the coming, slow am I. Apparently, I got "tagged" by Ancient and Harpy to do a screenshot lookup in this very un-organized mess of folders I got spread out just everywhere.

lol, it took a bit of fingering out and doing, but I finally came up with a reasonably close response, all the while realizing just how long I've been taking screenshots and how they've grown over the years. Oh well, another project for some future game maintenance day.

So, after a bit I came up with this one:

Alisym introduced

This was from November, 2010. During that time, Sol required all the 'kids' to meet with Malfurion and Tyrande. Alisym dutifully reported for the introduction which took place at the Temple of the Moon.
I think this was something to do with Sol's admiration and respect for Malfurion. Long did he try to fashion himself accordingly. Although he did'nt always agree with some of his hero's actions, he held a great belief in what he stood for. Sadly, Azeroth proved to be a bit over-whelming for Alisym. She retired gracefully.

*I'm quite late with this and also quite sure most folks have already been 'tagged,' so to speak. So here's the thing:
Consider this a re-useable, "Bound to Blogging Community Bloggers" heirloom trinket. If you haven't already been tagged, it is now done by way of Druidic Magic.  Have fun with it.  ~Sol

Those Little Pleasures

Every so often, you just have to sit back and relish those simple, little pleasures and surprises that happened your way seemingly out of nowhere. Such as, a very young Aygaren on his very first trip into the new Darkmoon Faire on it's first day. And lucky enough to fish up the Sea Pony.

Then there's the more subtle surprises which magically appear. I had no clue DBM kept such records, and made such announcements.



Deadly Boss Mod announcement

And after all those years of sneaking, nose-dives and stealthing into Org on Alliance toons to no avail, only to have about the newest Hordie finally turn in this catch. Fourth cast, doing a simple fishing daily.

We must not forget all those odd little sights along the way as well. Like bears stuck in trees.

Interesting, yet meaningful cave decor:

Or those off-road little get-aways where you can just fish and drink the day away:


Nat Pagle's Island

 And sometimes, a particular piece of quest reward gear just looks awesome to you. So much so, this shield waits in the bank for much later transmog use:

So tell me friends. What little odd-strange-simple-unusual memories do you hang on to?

lol and the UI update

I happened across this little datamined script over at MMO Champion one night.

 

TIME_PLAYED_ALERT = "You have been playing for %s. Excessive gameplay can
cause inconvenience in your daily life."

 

OOPS! They're on to me. How the heck am I going to convince them that WoW IS my daily life? Roflmao!

 

KK, more slightly serious stuff ahead.

 

Some of you may remember way back when I first ventured into the world of add-ons and UI changes. If not, the UI post with screenies is here.

 

I confess to being rather slow in doing such things for reasons I'll not bore you with. I must take my time with them. I do a little here and a little there, play with them for some time to get a good feel for the changes, then take time to consider the next change. To bring everyone up to date more or less, here is the current list of add-ons I'm using. Also note that instead of linking each one, I get all my add-ons from Curse.com, via the curse client. Makes installation quite easy :)

 

• Chinchilla Mini-map
• Omen (threat meter)
• Recount (damage meter)
• Bartender4 (action bars)
• Deadly Boss Mobs (PvE modifier/alerter)
• Tidy Plates (name plate mod w/threat indicator)
• KG Panels (shiny stuffs to pretty things up)
• Chatter (obvious useage)
• Pit Bull unit frames (group/party unit frames)
• Quartz (casting bar/buffs and timers)
• Healers Have To Die (Khrox's battleground favorite, lol)

 

The KG Panels, along with tweeking out Bartender4 and adjusting my camera max distance, are the most recent adjustments I've made. One of the other important considerations I keep in mind during all changes, is the ability to use my set-up across all characters. Important for two reasons. I don't want to go through changing the overall appearance, and I don't want to be changing keybinds.

 



UI screenshot4

I've got my KG panels thingy about as small as possible, where I can still recognize the icons at a glance if needed. My main rotations are keybound to the same keys across all characters. This required moving some spells and such through Bartender4, but no big deal. I just needed to use the same keybinds for my own memory sake, lol.

 

Now that most everything is pretty well contained in the bottom portion of my game screen, I further tweeked my "camera max distance" view to 35. (settings range from 0-50, default is around 15? as I recall) This was done for the benefit of Aygaren learning to tank, and needing to see more of what was all around him including the deeps squad and healer positions. I started with distance 35 which may or may not change after a few try-outs. My middle mouse scroll button still covers camera zooming for on the spot needs. There are still a couple of other camera settings I'll probably try out in time. What I've managed to do so far is good though.

 



camera max distance 35

Other minor notes: Recount isn't all that necessary any more, though still has some uses. I have it set to auto-hide when in combat, so it works well on top of Omen which I do use in combat. And, though all my characters gain duel-specialazations abilities, I haven't really worked with those changes to the action bars yet. Yep, I'm one for staying in my main chosen spec because I like it that way.

 

Keybinds and macros are set to the left of the minimap, clickable off spells/self heals and such to the right of map. Professions, food, drink, necessary pots/flasks and such are in the two down-sized right side bars. Very much out of the way.

 

Quartz-must have for me! Centered above but near the KG panels, leaving room for the timers and such to show. My own character frame is to the left, slightly lower. And my focus frame is to the right of it, along with the "target of focus" frame.

 

I still have work to do on the group/party frames. For now, they show up near the top, left side of the screen as long columns of ten. I would like to tweek them to more of a 'block' style. Some sort of a 5x5 thing or such.

 

Bagon: shows all bags as one. Mouse over an item, I get a total count of it plus seperate counts of in bag and in bank. Along with the quantities of all alts on that server and wheather in bank or bag. Pretty useful for me.

 

Chatter allows me personal customization of the chat box and various seperate channels as I use them.

 

All in all, it's been a slow learning process which I'm quite happy with so far. Everything just looks so much better, and is easy to navigate and manipulate when necessary. Add-on's can be very useful to your game play. Personally, I use them sparingly and as learning tools. Most all that I have, are really basic when compared to more serious players/raiders. That is just my personal view though, I am something of a minimalist in my ways, lol. So...

 

...if you're new to the game world of add-on's and UI adjustments, take your time. Start out with just one, maybe two. Get them set-up and use them for a bit. Then proceed at your own pace. In time, you'll probably come up with something quite useful for yourself, and have fun using it.

 

If you happen to be pretty good with game mods and UI's yourself, feel free to add any helpful suggestions for beginners in the comments. Most of my post here is about what I use, not how to use them. Though I will mention that most add-on's come with a readme.txt and usually a link to their website and possibly tutorials. As I recall, a couple were 'good to go out of the box,' to which I made only minor adjustments over time. But this was according to my personal tastes and useage. Your milage will certainly vary.

 

HappyGood gaming everyone!

Okay, just one fun one for the road-lol!



Gizzel and his baby naga's



 

 

 

12-25-2011

Wishing everyone peace, happiness and good health throughout the season!

~Sol~

You know when...

You know you've been playing WoW for a while when...


you pull a mob at range, kill it, loot it and pull the next mob...

before the first one hits the ground. At level 12-ish.

Okay, it was just one of those random thoughts that passed by. Along with the other one over game time about to become rather spotty and random between 20-Dec and 3-Jan. Hurumph...the nerve of rl people interupting my realities. Azeroth needs it's heros! Speaking of which...

Aygaren, now in his late thirty-somethings, has no fear of jumping into the frays inside Grommosh Hold. After all, he can fling a mean shield along with a few hammers. And it's not because he cares all that much for Garrosh. He just has this bone to pick with the Alliance, who seem to like raiding Grommosh Hold on a frequent basis.

At thirty-something, Aygaren can't really do a lot of damage to level capped pvp raiders. In fact, most of his shots tend to miss and do nothing at all. He would probably do more good switching specs in such cases and passing out light weight heals on fellow defenders. But no. He's a 'wanna-be-a-tank' pally and insists on fighting the best he can. So all in all, he was really surprised when in the middle of tossing shields about, this came up:

Yep. One purely magical moment when a shield actually found it's mark at just the right millasecond to send a level capped Ally to his maker. Be it magic, RNG good fortune or whatever, Aygaren enjoyed his moment of celebration. Moving along now. (wish I was quicker with the screenshot button, lol)

I recall back when, sort of, when I saw my first mechanochopper in the game. Stopping stone cold on the spot, I looked at this thing in total amazement and  awe. Wondering to self, "Self-what is this world coming to?" The amazement lasted about 10 seconds I think. Then the level capped owner dismounted and proceeded to one-shot me. Then came the rocket ships, and pink ones to boot. And let's not forget the Sparkle Ponies flitting about. Someone actually paid real money for that!?! I just shook my head and went about my Azerothian business.

All the Brothers in Arms now have their first mounts, very glad to give their tired feet or hooves a much needed rest. Aygaren don't particulary care for Belfs, but has become tolerant of one who happens to be his class trainer in Org. Tolerant because, the Belf granted him both riding and a great looking Kodo mount for less than 1 gold piece! Such a deal. Really!

Gizzel has hopped on the motorized mount wagon. Yep, he got his first Trike, and actually loves tooling around in it.











Birzak got his raptor, a rather expensive venture. Oh, he mentioned that he was a little too busy for picture taking that day.

And Gandom came into a wolf, for a moderate fee of coarse.

Gandom also has a new companion! Such a happy little thing she is. Although, she does tend to randomly stop in mid-stride, or mob fight, to cross over into some sort of realm of oblivion. At least she does manage to catch up rather quickly when her reality snaps back in.

Last but not least, there's Bossy. How the heck she got herself in some out of the way upstairs room unable to get down the stairs, is just pure mystery. And she's not speaking of how or why.






Okay, one for the road: Gandom came across this friendly little fella whilist flower picking in the snow.

OH, and my new phrase for the week is courtesy of the Forsaken:

"Beware the living."

Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

Enjoy your game folks, whatever it may be. :)

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-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

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