I think it’s because I don’t understand how they go. How do they keep propelling themselves ever forward as I stand astride them from flight point to flight point?
Do they have a little engine inside? Does the air flow through the bamboo and somehow propel them that way?
It’s probably for the best I haven’t gotten a player mount version yet. Otherwise I’d work myself into a tizzy trying to figure out how they hover midair.
But they sure look lovely gliding through the air.
So the other day I went to play World of Warcraft on my laptop, and being that I haven’t played on my laptop for awhile, it had to update to the latest patch, 5.2. I waited for it to update fully… or at least I thought I did:
Censor bars for Tauren – it’s the new thing!
At first I wondered if there was a ninja patch since last I played that was purposefully adding that… but then I thought better of it and assumed my copy was glitching out just a little bit.
(My first hint at that is when I got to the login screen and the flashing cursor marker on the password field was about 10 times as tall as it should’ve been. It looked hilarious but I wasn’t able to grab a screenshot as it flashed. Oh well, maybe next time).
The sky is often beautiful rendered in World of Warcraft. I suppose it should be, with all the flying done in and around it. But the clouds! *swoon*
My only wish is that I had been wearing something a little prettier in this shot, haha.
(Okay, two wishes — the second wish is that it would be easier to take screenshots while flying!)
I haven’t been completely idle during my long posting absence (and won’t be next time I disappear, I’m sure). In fact, I’ve been busy doing all sorts of WoW content, aka mostly complaining about dailies, gearing extremely slowly, being unable to pull together a second raiding team for my guild and therefore not raiding, playing the AH to mild success, and — most importantly — remembering at the last minute I actually want to participate in a holiday celebration.
You see, last year I didn’t realize Blizzard had added a new mount, the Swift Lovebird, to the Love Is In The Air event until after the event had finished. And alas, it was one of my favorite model/skins, the pink tallstrider Mazzranache (two of my many hunters use this as one of their main pets – Mamisha, my Tauren hunter, and Likal, my Night Elf hunter. Yet for some reason I had not gotten the Mulgore Hatchling pet until just a few weeks ago when I purchased it off the AH. Wait, I remember why — it has to do with dailies). As soon as I saw the mount I knew I had to get it.
Flash-forward to this year, and on the Wednesday before Love Is In The Air ended I remembered my deep desire for this mount. A bit late there.
Nevertheless, I carried on, and with the help of a few guildies and Jed from twitter to get into a farming spot, I got enough tokens to get my very own!
A fellow Tauren also got her pretty pink mount. 🙂
Even more excitingly, my Night Elf hunter Likal, who is on an RP realm, can use the Swift Lovebird as a way to ‘ride’ her pet bird, Kanoni!
Here she is with her pet…
Likal and Kanoni
And here she is riding her pet!
Likal riding her trusty pet and steed, Kanoni
I’ve even made a macro to assist in the mount switching, so two Kanoni’s don’t show up at once!
The ‘Ride Kanoni’ Macro
Here’s the macro text:
/cast [pet] Dismiss Pet
/cast Swift Lovebird
/cast [nopet] Call Pet 1
Sure, it takes a little longer to mount up, but it’s totally worth it!
(Especially once I get into RPing on the Alliance side again >_> ).
My guild, Xcessive, has fallen upon hard times. A number of our members have left for real-life reasons; schooling, children, military duties overseas, and even just getting tired with the game. Quite a few people, including our beloved guild leader, Ladybug, needed a break from WoW and went to play Rift. They’ve formed an Xcessive there too, which I hear is a decent Rift raiding guild on Deepwood.
But all these absences in WoW have left our raiding group incredibly thin. We barely manage to get 5 or 6 people in our raid team before needing to pug, and pugging our Firelands raid team leads to variable success. Some groups we manage to get 6/7; others we stall out early. It’s very frustrating. And with our guild leader not playing WoW, it makes it hard to restructure, reorganize, and recruit.
That’s why, some time ago, I had a discussion with Ladybug and we decided that I could take over the guild. I have, believe it or not, been an officer for several years now, and do enjoy cleaning the guild bank. (Another choice would have been her son, Rowdy… but we all agree — including Rowdy — that he would not make a good GL. Great Raid Leader, probably not great Guild Leader).
With her not playing the game anymore, I had to put in a ticket to take over guild ownership. (Actually, Ladybug put in a ticket through the website first, but they weren’t able to resolve it correctly the first time, so then I had to wait to put in a ticket myself. Details). This was right before Blizzcon, so the wait time for tickets was pretty high, as I assume much of their staff was busy.
It did lead to a silly situation where I was promoted to GL before I was contacted by the GM. This confused one of my fellow guildies I was talking with.
My conversation about our MIA Guild Master Ladybug... as the GM ninja promotes me to Guild Master.
Needless to say, Erya was a bit surprised:
Erya's reaction to the ninja GMing.
But after the promotion, the GM did contact me. Here’s part of our conversation:
Oh you GMs and your silly jokes.
So now I am the Guild Leader for Xcessive. I held a guild meeting just the other day to discuss our current situation and what we can do to help out our raid team and generally make the guild a nice place to be. Perhaps I will write more about my adventure guild leading in the future.
Has your guild ever had a situation like this where people leave? What did they do? Do you have any guild leading advice for me? Because I’m pretty sure I’ll need it.
And if any of you play on Ysera, let me know. Xcessive is recruiting. 🙂
For ages my character login screen on Ysera has looked like this:
That's right; I'm too tall for the screen with that helm on.
Mishaweha, Milthete, Mamisha, Methril, Moisha, Maiheela, Mistreaver, Marlenn, Mourninglory, and Mandlebrot. That’s how it’s looked like for quite some time. (Can you find the theme?!)
I’ve even left it like that even after they implemented the ability to move characters around, most likely because I am lazy.
And I’ve had few complaints about my character creation order either. It used to go in a pattern for races: Tauren, Undead, Tauren, Blood Elf, repeat. Though now that order has been broken when I race changed my Undead Priest, Maiheela, Â into a Tauren named Minnetrista; not to mention my last toon, a token male Blood Elf, Â had already broken the pattern by not being undead.
Since the pattern is broken (or just because), I’ve decided to shift their order. Back to a simpler time, when they used to be in order by level.
And so I present to you… the new character selection page!
The "new" selection screen, ordered by level! Mishaweha, Mourninglory, Mamisha, Moisha, Milthete, Methril, Minnetrista, Marlenn, Mistreaver, and Mandlebrot
Once again order triumphs over chaos.
Let’s see how long it takes before my resolve breaks and I change it back.
I think the belt really pulls it all together. *shudder*
This outfit says it all.
Blog Azeroth’s Shared Topic for the September 6th-12th OF LAST YEAR (which shows you how long I tend to hold onto drafts, yes?) was suggested by the blog FERALTREE. He recently wrote a post about mementos (which keep trying to spell as ‘momentos’, a word that doesn’t exist but if it did would mean ‘a small moment in time’ or ‘a chewy candy mint”). You know, those items in the bank or you bags that you keep around for the memories they bring.
I had started writing a post about these things that I keep around, because I know very well what it means.
You’re looking at a Class-A packrat in-game, who only gets rid of items she’s kept FOREVER only to replace them with more items that she will keep FOREVER.
For example, take a look at Mishaweha’s bags:
This screenshot is from a year ago. Her bags don't look much better today.
Right now I’m up around fifteen empty slots… and I have a few bigger bags too. And the inventory I carry around is usually filled with items that I’m more likely to use.
In this screenshot, for instance, the last three or so bags were full of my elemental, enhancement, and extra-resto equipment. Nowadays it has my enhancement set and some pvp gear (I use my resto set to do elemental things, which means it’s horribly optimized for pew pew).
The other bags contain food, drink, potions, some more equipment, leather and other things that I skin, and a few ‘collectible’ items for fun — today’s bag is also full of these things.
And of course, none of these extra items can go in my bank, because it looks like this:
This screenshot from a year ago would pretty much look the same today. My bank doesn't see too much turnover.
That’s right — my bank is full! It’s mostly gear I’ve saved for looks even though I never try it on, or quest reward items that hold memories (I suppose that’s why they are mementos, eh?)
Here’s a partial list of the items I’m holding onto:
And there’s much much more!
And I’m guessing here that I’m not the only one who saves their favorite old gear, and holiday outfits.
But the question I’m sure you all are asking is…
I’m so glad you asked.
Let me direct you to this quote from a WoWInsider article on this new thing call Void Storage:
Another addition coming with the patch is “Void Storage”, a new 100 to 150 items slots. Like transmogrification, void storage comes from the Ethereals. Void storage is a pocket dimension created for a player that allows them to store extra items, but there is a downside.
Anything stored in the void is stripped of its enchantments and gems and the name of the person who crafted it, Chilton said. The stripping isn’t tied to the lore of the game, either, but is the byproduct of a technical issue that makes this new storage system possible.
An additional 100 – 150 slots?! For holding the gear I’ve been saving for the memories and the looks for so long? Sign me up!
No longer will I and countless other pack rats be forced to give up one of their prized possessions because you want to save this new piece of gear you had.
No longer will we be punished with our characters screaming “My inventory is full” just because you wanted to collect gear for three of your specs for both PvE and PvP, for your bank will now be a pristine clean space with all of your low-stat-yet-stylish treasures tucked away into the void.
No longer will our fellow RPers wonder why our character always wear the same set of clothes, as our collection of RP outfits will no longer be limited by the space in our banks.
(Until we collect over 100 – 150 pieces of gear, that is).
(You know it will happen).
I, for one, will enjoy this change immensely. Especially with transmogrification service that will be offered.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to the extra bag space? Is this a change that should have been made sooner? Or do you care less because you actually have an empty bank? And is this more or less awesome than the transmogrification of armor? Let me know in the comments!
Remember how I mentioned The SA and I recently got a cat? Well, I just got another one! Check it out:
My new kitty!
And it flies!
Whee!
What was that? Oh! You wanted to learn more about the real cat that we had gotten? I suppose… After all, we have decided on a name for her.
I’m pleased to reintroduce you to our cat, Xena!
Xena, Warrior Kitty
That’s right, we named her after Xena, Warrior Princess.
The Original Xena, Warrior Princess. Can you not see the resemblance?
If we get another cat, we’ll have to name her Gabrielle (or Joxer if it was a boy).
It’s a fitting name for her; kitty-Xena has mad hops, just like the person-Xena. And she has a tendency to play-bite a lot, which I guess is something person-Xena would do if she were a cat. We’re trying to stop kitty-Xena from biting though, so far with only marginal success.
"Me? I wouldn't harm a fly. Well, maybe a fly, but not you (very much)!"
Yes, she loves the sink and playing with the water. It's adorable.
Xena's surgery incision while it was still healing. You can hardly see it now.
Recently we got her spayed (to keep her from peeing on beds while in heat, besides that not getting kittens thing), so she’s been recovering.At first she took the confinement to the bathroom pretty well, but she got impatient as time went on. By Day 5 after the surgery she was ready to go.
Xena demands her freedom by looking adorable!
She will play fetch with these on occassion.
Too bad she was supposed to stay confined for 10-14 days. We let her out into the other rooms, especially when it got pretty warm (there was no AC for that side of the apartment), but we kept her away from her sparkly balls, which she loves to aggressively play with.
Her after-surgery check-up was just the other day, so we forced her into her carrier (for some reason she has an aversion to it now…) and headed off to the vet, who said that she looked fine. So she could run and jump yet again after those sparkly balls!
Of course, the vet also gave her a feline leukemia vaccine, which was scary because it made a loud noise. But Xena was still an adorable kitty – it even said so on her report back from surgery: “Xena is a doll!” Apparently she was being all cute in the cage before the surgery — rubbing against the door, flopping down in cute positions. You know, the usual for her.
"You heard the vet - I'm an adorable doll!"
Flop! Right by a book! Again.
She always flops. We get home from work and it’s accusing meows for leaving her alone all day, followed by a flop in the middle of the floor by no one, as if to say, “You! Come here and pet me for I am adorable!”
"I'm adorable! Where are the pettings?"
Welp, when she’s right, she’s right.
*pets*
This year marks the first year since achievements came out that I have not completed the School of Hard Knocks achievement.
The first year? I completed it with Mishaweha, thus allowing myself to secure this wonderful mount later in the year.
The second year? Mourninglory had her turn, giving her a similarly wonderful mount that I probably won’t use because Death Knights are practically required to fly on a bone gryphon because, come on, Death Knights.
And this was the year that the next alt down the line — Mamisha, my hunter — would do as many of the Children’s Week achievements as possible, so someday she too could fly on a fuchsia-violet protodrake instead of her noisy roflcopter.
But if I completed it before, you may ask, why didn’t you complete it again this year?”
Good question! Let’s analyze the possibilities.
Was it because the achievement suddenly became too hard to do?
Nah, that wasn’t it. Cynwise’s guide has always been helpful for these achievements. And even at the lower levels, where more people are trying to PvP and not do the achievements, it’s still possible. Though I must admit, the graveyard changes from WSG makes returning the flag a lot trickier when you can’t just run back up to defend.
How about realizing the achievement was poorly designed and not doing it in protest?
Fah! I’ve done it twice, I can keep on trucking. Though Rades had come up with some much better, team based solutions to the achievement that I believe would suit most everyone else much better. It’s a little too late to change it now, though, as those who have already done it might cry foul that they wasted their time.
What about the fact that I got a cold during the week?
Actually, that was partly a factor. I definitely took time off from WoW to sleep and recover, which took away potential time to run battlegrounds. It’s hard to patiently wait for battleground or make a beeline for an AV tower while your throat is sore, your nose is running, your head aches, and your new cat is trying to run all over your keyboard.
But the real reason I gave up on this achievement in defeat was because of this:
That’s right, the battleground entry screen.
Or in my case, the non-entry screen.
Over half the time, when I would click on the ‘Enter Battle’ button, the box would merely disappear, leaving me out of luck. When I would check the battleground queue button, it would either tantalize me with the option to enter the battleground (but it was lying), or the queue I was in would simply not be present.
With this happening fairly often, I soon lost patience with the system. It’s one thing to wait for a battleground to attempt to complete a difficult achievement. It’s another to wait for a battleground you may not even get into to try for an achievement you may not get.
In the end, I’m not sure if this was a widespread bug, or just caused by one of my addons messing up the system after the patch. My laziness cold prevented me from fully investigating. But when a basic system like the battleground queue fails, it makes completing frustrating achievements not worth it.
Oh well, there’s always next year.
Me, Myself... And All Of Them 