Weekly Recap

During the latter part of the past week, I woke up those sleepy kids of mine and ran them through their next level, including that lazy city camping banker rogue. They've mostly been waiting around for the Xpac and new quest lines, which I have read to understand, have been totally revamped for the better. Some even say they are more story-line in nature, and I happen to enjoy such things. Back to the rogue though.


Oneshadow is not only different from my preferred spell-casting kids, he also comes with two gathering professions which were originally meant to assist his elder siblings with keeping the lower end stock of mats supplied as they moved upward. Sol figured that this was a good plan of action for him to follow, but now he must progress and not let the age gap widen too awful much. Right now, his closest sibling he assists is probably three times older, a blacksmith by trade, and with not much use for the copper and tin ores anymore. Hence, Oneshadow is now charged with stock-pileing what he can for any siblings to come along, and move himself into higher zones of mining to keep up with Netherone.

Kaimara is the lone female sibling, and kind of stuck in the middle between Netherone and Oneshadow. She is also kinda-sorta out of the loop for gaining any real profession help from her brothers as she chose enchanting and tailoring trades. Now, it's easy enough for her brothers to send her low level greens and such for dis-enchanting, and even some of the various cloths they loot for her tailoring. Beyond that though, she depends upon daddy to keep her leveling experience financed. Kai is still very much a "glass-mage", it don't take much for her to break down as yet so daddy still needs to watch over her more than her brothers. Her eldest brother, Bubblegumtwo (the rebellious one), is usually close enough in zone distance to protect her during those ugly horde ganking sessions. (a common occurance on a horde-heavy server) Just like her daddy though, she is a survivor and will make it. She is also wiser in the ways of the world and has learned well from daddy's experiences, so she will be all that much stronger.

And, just where the heck is daddy? Well, Sol decided, (in his ways of ADD/OCD spasmatic occurances), to grind out all the kill quests for that Winterspring mount. Somewhere along the line he found out that this mounts' quest line will no longer be available in the Xpac, and since he has collected an array of mounts (one from each home city faction, etc.) this particular mount has become his current obsession. In six hours, Sol went from being nothing to the Winterspring Frostsaber Trainer to 1/3 friendly. Quite an accomplishment for the old one. Sol now knows why he don't see any of these mounts around even though he's sure they are, the grind is a long tedious one.

Sol is also working on putting back a bunch of extra mats and gold for the future. He will probably sell off most of the transmuted gems he makes as he goes, keeping a small stash for Bubblegums' use (jewel crafting). He's also gathering up tourney heirloom gear for the kids. The elder three already have the benefits of some gear he's aquired, now he'll need to send the baby rogue something.

That pretty much covers the events of the past few days, except that Sol feels that there must be some kind of horde bounty on his head lately. Don't know why, but it seems that every horde in whatever area he's in just has to come by and gank him, numerous times. /shrug Such is life on Spinebreaker.

Sooooo got to have!

Road Map(s)

I read a lot of different blogs and WOW websites for just about as many different reasons. I'm not a theory-crafter/numbers cruncher, so I read up on what I can from those who are, and not just from my own class specifically. Sol has developed and evolved into a better druid this way, not particulary good or great, but better.


Then there's the social and game news to follow up on. Plenty of blogs and websites to read here also. Some are quite well-known, some aren't, and some are really enjoyable and fun to read. Even with the 'fun' reads, I usually still come across something informative or note-worthy to meld into Sols' world.

I've noticed a bit of a trend lately in my reading list. Besides all the Cataclysm news which normally floods my google reader list, there's been more postings about personal player experiences and what people are doing to prepare their mains for the Xpac. Without actually being consious of all the possibilities, in these readings I've found that Sol seems to be following a sort of natural road map in this direction.

Over at  Druid Main: A Rep Grinding Masochist  I read about rep grinding. Sol has been into this since he dinged 80, I guess because it's easier to do now, or or more likely I probably just didn't see it as all that important at earlier levels of questing. Either way, taking several days to grind a particular rep for one reason or another is kind of like a personal quest for Sol.


Then there's the gold issues. A lot is being written about how important it will be to have a fair amount of gold on hand going into the expansion. How the cost of everything usually sky-rockets during the early months, etc. Gold has always been an issue for Sol. It comes and goes rather easily, usually sent off in lots to the 'children' for their training or profession leveling. Only on rare occasion will Sol buy something for himself that isn't on his need-this list. (like that 600g armored bear he got a month ago) Sol's gold mostly comes from quest rewards along with some minor AH sales, so he don't have a whole bunch of it. Right now, it's at it's highest amount ever, slightly over 7k. A comfortable amount for Sol, although probably not really enough to handle all the coming changes I've read about.

So now, the great quest for shiny gold is about to begin. Along with the stock-piling of mats, not only for himself and the children, but for the expected arrival of adopted worgens and goblins. Sol will also set aside some BoE gear from the dungeons and instances he solo's for the kids. Anything to make the leveling life a bit easier for them.

These are all things I've read about lately, and all are worthy of consideration and trial runs. Who knows what will come of it. I do know that there's no harm in giving everything a tryout now and then, and if it works for you, all the better.

Stalled-grinding rep-etc.

Kind of like when the engine stalls out in your car. I was crusin' along with focus on gear, acceptable gs, mixing pve and pvp along the way. Doing the 25 dailys allowed for the gold, tapping into the AH market and all the usual things lvl 80's do I guess. Then it hit...engine stalled out. Don't know why. Everything just started to fizzle out in chunks. Even my alts are on vacation since they are still on this side of Outland and Cata will dramatically change their 1-60 leveling. So I decided to take a break from it all.

I have been reading a bunch of lore lately and visiting the 'old world' quite a bit. That get-away from Northrends' fast pace. So I popped into the Plaguelands and decided to grind out the Argent Dawn rep I've been needing for that title. Several days of quests, soloing Strath and Scholomance (mostly the latter), and in general leaving everything else behind. Got the exalt and title today, adding to the growing list of achievements. It felt good to visually see a new acomplishment flash up on the screen for a change. Hopefully the other three I've been working on here and there will succeed before the Xpac comes out.

I found a listing of realm servers by timezone the other night. Not that I'm considering a server transfer in spite of my usual frustrations on Spinebreaker, but in looking to find one in my own eastern time zone that was also fairly equal in Ally/Horde population. I browsed through the PVP servers, not much of a shock that most were Horde favored, but found a few that were relatively close in numbers. I decided to try something off-beat for me though and chose a 'normal' server to try out. I'm sure most know that normal servers are fairly PVE orientated, and that you can choose when to flag your self as PVP when you desire to do so. (BG's and such) The other little nuance here is that you can create both an alliance and horde character on the server. This has its' plus side for me. The ability to create and level both my balance druid ally and his horde counterpart in the same place. Hmmm...the wheels are grinding away again. The best of both worlds? Not only a local server, but one I can have ally and horde on equally? This seems good.

I started with my druid of coarse, Solthesecond. Right off, I noticed the increased number of new level 1-6 druids in the starter area. By the time I reached Dolonar, there was also quite a few 80's moving about as well. The over-all atmosphere seemed much more relaxed and friendly. People were actually being helpful towards one another. All this is quite a change from my original server. I've invested a lot of time in Spinebreaker and still call it home along with all its' challenges and quirks, it'll always be that way. But for now, I'm thinking that this new server choice will be just the "get-away-from-it-all" place I need to balance my inner self out.
Sol