When the servers went down early Tuesday morning, it was effectively the end of Mists of Pandaria. When they come back online, we’ll be starting Warlords of Draenor even if the expansion hasn’t actually released.
I enjoyed this expansion. Unlike some people, I had no problem with the setting. It was beautiful, the story of the sha was original, and I liked both the Alliance and the Horde’s character development. Yeah, it would have been better if we didn’t know Garrosh was going to be the end boss, and the expansion had a couple problems such as too many dailies and the feeling that LFR and flex were both requires for normal mode raiders.
As a healer, I found scenarios boring. However, I discovered Proving Grounds and Challenge Mode dungeons too late in the expansion. Of course I knew they existed, but I wish I cared about them earlier. I didn’t even touch the Brawler’s Guild unfortunately.
I’m obviously excited for Warlords of Draenor, but I’ll admit, I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I keep busy, and as much as I do love raiding, I’m not looking forward to the time sink.
On Sunday, I finished earning silvers in the Challenge Mode dungeons. Monday night I spent my currencies, and then Mooglegem and I said our goodbyes to the Kor’kron. I know they were the bad guys this expansion, but they weren’t always that way. They were once the elite soldiers and guards, and this blog is named after them. I’m kind of sad to see them go entirely.
Here we are with a couple more Kor’kron.
And finally, a ton of Kor’kron! Woo! I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this spot immediately.
Next I decided to visit the Dark Portal while it was still green.
Obviously I was not alone in this endeavor. Lots of other Horde were here along with a few Alliance as well. Why the one or two Alliance members that came decided to try to engage in PVP, I’ll never know.
What’s that? A line of Sea Turtles, jumping into their shells? Count me in! I know it seems silly, but this type of thing is one of the best aspects of MMOs. This isn’t part of the planned content. Visiting the Dark Portal after the patch might be, and coming here to quest is, sure. But everyone coming together to chat, emote, use fun items, and celebrate might be expected but it was not planned content. It was just a bunch of players having fun. I love it.
When the server’s come back online, these same players will be ready to stop the Iron Horde!
A few weeks ago, Zaghar, my guildmate, suggested we run Challenge Mode dungeons to get silvers for the mount before the first season of CMs ended with the completion of Mists of Pandaria. I’d been wanting to do CMs mostly for the, well, challenge of it. We’ve been running them when we had the chance. I wish we had started earlier because they’re a lot of fun.
Is that a second Devee in the picture? No, it’s just Mooglegem.
I really enjoy how Challenge Mode dungeons greatly reduce the role of gear and tests group skill. In Warlords of Draenor, I think I’d like to try Challenge Mode dungeons earlier so I could aim for golds. However, I have to be honest that I’m not sure how much time I can truly devote to the game. I doubt I can seriously focus on CMs and raiding.
gem and I both chose Violet Pandaren Phoenixes as our rewards! Of course, soon we’ll have all of them when the patch lands.
Recently I was playing my paladin, Illuminnae. She’s Illussia’s (gem’s warlock) sister of course! After finishing Eversong Woods, she headed south into the Ghostlands.
Finishing that zone unlocked Loremaster of Eastern Kingdoms! However, I still had a little playing to do. The achievement always comes before the end of the zone for some reason. I understand they like to give wiggle room, but there’s no way I’m going to stop before the conclusion of a zone once I’m reaching the good stuff!
Traveling to the Undercity, I got to trigger Sylvanas’ Lament of the Highborne. It was pretty darn cool to see even if I have seen it previously. I can listen to it any time with Sylvanas’ Music Box, but it’s not every day that I get to see the event too!
For now, I’m done with Illuminnae as I move to my druid. I’m sure I’ll return to her in a bit though!
The last time I wrote about Sleepypaw, I had played through Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Redridge Mountains, and Duskwood on my Alliance pandaren monk. I figured it was time for a short update. Back in July I finished Northern Stranglethorn on him, and in August I completed the Cape of Stranglethorn. Being contested zones, they were largely the same as they were Horde side.
Because I was also doing dungeon runs with my friends on this character, Sleepypaw was 55 by the time I completed Stranglethorn with him. However, due to being busy on Friday nights quite often, the nights of our dungeon runs, I also got out-leveled. For these reasons, I’m retiring Sleepypaw for now. That’s not to say I won’t ever return to him, but my real goal for leveling alts was to see the zones I hadn’t seen previously. There’s little point in playing low level zones with a higher level character because I might as well reroll. When I choose to see the rest of the Alliance’s Eastern Kingdoms, I’ll be doing it with a new toon!
As most people probably know by now, Robin Williams passed away on the 11th of this month. He wasn’t an actor a particularly tracked in recent years, but I definitely have pleasant memories of him when I was younger. At least from his movies, he sure seemed to be a kind-hearted, happy individual. He was also an avid gamer; the Nintendo commercials with his daughter Zelda are kind of obvious examples. He was also a fan of World of Warcraft.
On the 12th, Shaun Prescott for PC Gamer reported on a fan petition by Jacob Holgate to Blizzard, asking them to include an NPC memorializing Robin Williams. It gave an example, a character in the World’s End Tavern telling his best jokes. That would be amazing in my opinion. The World’s End Tavern is an awesome location in game that already contains Perry Gatner and his stand-up routine , The Artists Formerly Known as Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain, and Haris Pilton.
Prescott noted that an update by Holgate on the change.org petition stated that “In less than twenty four hours [they’ve] earned eleven thousand signatures,” although I only see 10,975 on the petition at this time.
@Celestalon has already noted that Blizzard has seen the petition and are “taking care of it.”
Good on Blizzard to respond so quickly. The official World of Warcraft Twitter account also tweeted this:
.@robinwilliams Thank you. You gave us so much joy in our lives, and we hope you enjoyed your time in our world. We’ll see you in-game. — World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) August 13, 2014
Megan Farokhmanesh of Polygon reported that fans have also held memorials in World of Warcraft, including this one by Dylan Hecht.
It’s been a while since I posted, but what kind of WoW blogger would I be if I didn’t talk about this cinematic? Like most of Blizzard’s lore-rich trailers, this really got me excited. I enjoyed the fact that in both the original timeline and the Warlords of Draenor timeline, Grom gets to kill Mannoroth. I also particularly like Garrosh saving him. And Grom’s last lines? “We will never be slaves. But we will be conquerors.” That’s a terrific line, especially the pause between sentences.
Not all of the dungeons jumped out at me, but two really did – the Iron Docks and Grimrail Depot. I guess I like industrialism, but how could you not like Grimrail Depot? Part of it is actually on a train. Now I realize that when it comes to gameplay, it’ll all likely feel the same. Similarly, the idea of fighting on Deathwing’s back was really cool, but when it comes time to do it, I’m so focused on mechanics and numbers that it feels the same. Still, I really like this.
The 10th anniversary event sounds cool too. Tarren Mill vs Southshore is a great PVP throwback, and I’m super interested to see a deathmatch-style battleground. All I really want to do when I PVP is fight, so why has it taken so long to get a deathmatch battleground? Temple of Kotmogu is close. I’ll be curious to see what this is like.
Molten Core is also a pretty iconic raid to reinvigorate also. It’s a 40-man LFR, so everyone at endgame should be able to see it easily. And a Molten Corgi? Adorable.
My only issue is that it’s for max level characters. Warlords of Draenor drops 11/13/14, and the anniversary event starts within a week and a half or so. Does that mean we’ll need to rush to level 100?
@Celestalon Hey celestalon when warlords hit are we going to be in a rush to get to lvl 100 for the anniversary? because it seems like it
The last time I wrote about Voidgazer’s questing, I had just finished Silverpine Forest. That was months ago, and I got a lot further now. Note that I’ll be talking about my opinion of the zones in this post, so there will be spoilers for many Cataclysm low-level zones in Eastern Kingdoms.
In Hillsbrad Foothills, I particularly liked the quest to be a quest giver myself. I sent Dumass napping because he wouldn’t be able to do much else.
I sent the mighty Kingslayer Orkus to Southshore. He’s a great character. It’s too bad I didn’t do this quest at the beginning of Cataclysm instead of the end of Mists of Pandaria.
Lastly, I sent Johnny Awesome, decked out in full heirlooms, to the Sludge Fields. These three characters really to represent three major cliches of character types. There’s the newbie, the high-level character who’s overly proud, and the alt who is really awesome (on his other toon).
We also get to see Drek’Thar. I don’t remember seeing him in declining health in the game, but I might have missed his presence somewhere. I knew he was getting older and his health was slipping from the novels, but it’s always cool to see these things reflected in the game.
I didn’t really feel like the Arathi Highlands were memorable. Similarly, I remember what happens in the Hinterlands but only because it’s annoying. It feels like you’re done with the enemy troll hub like five or six times. “Good job. You really cleared them all out of there! They’re all defeated! …Okay, now go back in there and…” The zone moved at a snail’s pace. Looking back on them now, the problem with these two zones might simply be that they come right after the excellent storytelling of the Forsaken-centered zones.
I happily got back to the great zones when I was sent to Western Plaguelands. Koltira is a fascinating character with his interactions with Thassarian, his Alliance counterpart. Too bad Sylvanas doesn’t seem to like him as much as I do. I look forward to hearing his story unfold more in the future.
In the Eastern Plaguelands, you join a caravan that slowly moves through the zones as you progress in the quests. It’s actually similar to Vashj’ir, only fun. As you progress, more people join the caravan. While none of them made an impression in my mind deep enough to cause me to remember their names or specific details, it was fun to watch their interactions through the zone.
There was a drop in quality when traveling to the Badlands although I still enjoyed it. In this zone, players deal with attempts by the red dragonflight to save the black dragonflight. Deathwing doesn’t seem too happy.
We also get to learn all about the day that Deathwing came and what really happened as a small group of friends tell stories and argues about who got it right. Martek the Exiled told me all about his flying motorcycle and the hot babe who rode with him.
The Searing Gorge wasn’t as compelling as the Forsaken zones, but it had its moments. Lunk, the pacifist ogre, makes for some good comic-relief. It turns out you can be quite effective without killing – if you’re huge.
The zone also contained the fun quests about stealing the pillows from the Dark Iron that I wrote about previously.
By the time I reached the Burning Steppes, I was getting anxious to finish the content. The zone deals with stopping the Blackrock Clan’s impending invasion of Redridge Mountains. I’m glad I did some questing on my Alliance character before reaching this zone because it gave me a bit of understanding of the Alliance’s struggle against the Blackrock orcs. It was nice to see Eitrigg and his son, Ariok, working to stop them.
Screwing with the leaders of the orc clan was fun as well.
The Swamp of Sorrows was a short zone that didn’t seem very eventful. However, this reference to Nickelodeon’s Legends of the Hidden Temple brought a quick smile to my face.
Finally, I reached the Blasted Lands where I spent time completing quests of questionable ethics against the Alliance as well as fighting some demons. With everything concluded nicely, it’s time for Voidgazer to step through the Dark Portal to Outland!
Or, it would be if I intended to play him more. For now, his story is finished.
Last week, I finished Duskwood on Sleepypaw. I like dark, creepy aesthetic to the zone, but I really disliked the trees. They looked nice, but I got tired of having my camera go past the trees. Blizzard might not realize it, but I like seeing my character and the enemies around me, not leaves. Why don’t the leaves go transparent if they’re between the camera and the player’s character?
Duskwood was a very Worgen-filled zone, and I enjoyed learning about the various characters – a war hero who comes home to devastation, a brother with a secret, and a who struggles to hold onto his mind.
Friday night was our dungeon night. First we did Uldaman, which went rather smoothly. Next up we did Scholomance. I like that dungeon quite a bit, but I realized that it’s unfortunately Lilian Voss doesn’t mean much to players who haven’t seen the Forsaken starting area. She’s a fantastic character. Finally, we ventured into Dire Maul. We started with the Warpwood Quarter, which went decently even if it’s a bit of a sprawling mess.
We ended the night with the Gordok Commons. This is a wonderful dungeon because it actually gives choices that effect the way the dungeon is completed. In this way, it’s probably the closest bit of WoW to Dungeons & Dragons. We killed Guard Mol’dar without really thinking about it. Whoops. Stomper Kreeg hung out drunk in the corner, and we didn’t bother him. One out of two so far. Guard Fengus got pulled by accident, so we killed him. One out of three. Guard Slip’kik went similarly. One out of four. I’m happy to report that we weren’t too dumb for the Gordok Ogre Suit, so we did manage to get past Captain Kromcrush. Two out of five. We left Cho’Rush the Observer alive while we killed King Gordok. Three out of six. I guess it could have been worse. I’d be interested in trying again with the group next week if we’re still in the same level range.
Having read War Crimes, I shouldn’t have been surprised that the Vision of Time quests would be anticlimactic. I suppose it was mildly interesting to see things about which I had read, but I was hoping for a little more. On the plus side, at least I won’t have to go killing on the Timeless Isle for Epoch Stones now. Farming while watching Netflix was getting tedious.
I came across this quest on my warlock, Voidgazer. It presents a great question. “How can [the Dark Iron] sleep without pillows?” Not very well, which is why I was tasked with stealing their pillows. I was already in love with this quest just by reading this.
I found their dormitory and went about stealing their pillows. They weren’t too happy with me, but I wouldn’t be happy with someone stealing my pillows either.
Twenty or so minutes later, I was deeper in their territory working towards another goal when Chambermaid Pillaclencher yelled, “Thieves! Scallywags! Rapscallions! Come face me gigantic pillas!” What kind of man would I be if I didn’t face a woman’s gigantic pillas?
I saw her standing in the dormitory holding two, well, gigantic pillas… er, pillows. I don’t know how comfy they’d be given the fact that they don’t look very firm.
She went crazy with her pillows, defending her right to nap peacefully with pillows.
I defeated her, and where she fell, she dropped a huge, very comfortable looking pillow. I wanted to take a nap on it right then!
I knew after retrieving it that Evonice Sootsmoker would probably like to see it, so I set off to return to her.
Of course, she wanted it to herself. I don’t know what came over me. I should have kept it, because what could I want more than a gigantic pillow, big enough on which to fit my entire body?
She gave me Evonice’s Landin’ Pilla, a trinket that reduces fall speed. Nice, but not a huge, comfortable pilla. That’s too bad, because with Chambermaid Pillaclencher’s Pillow, I could have been the King of Naps!
Previously I discussed leveling in Redridge Mountains on Sleepypaw and meeting Bravo Company. These are NPCs that quest with you throughout the zone. They’re pretty hilarious because they act like player classes and even talk in a way that seems to fit the story while still sounding like people with whom you might group. I mentioned in my last post on the subject that a paladin talks how the light suddenly felt weaker, as if he was nerfed.
I found a fantastic comment on Bravo Company on Wowhead that I just had to share. Here’s a few choice sections as well as a link to the full comment.
This new cross-realm stuff Blizz added is great! I’m just doing my quests in Redridge, no big deal. After a few quests, I noticed I have these lowbies following me around…
… As soon as he starts following the mage and I, he complains that he feels weaker this week.
“I know that feel, man. You guys are getting buffed in MoP though.” I assumed he knew and we kept questing. A warlock, mage, and a paladin. The paladin wasn’t healing though, he was ret specced. It was kind of hard having my voidwalker do all the tanking, so I politely asked if he could change specs, since we already had two dps…
Sleepypaw, my Tushui pandaren monk, joined my friends’ guild, Olio de Oliva. Friday we ran some dungeons, and I had a lot of fun. This is the same group with whom I sometimes play World of Tanks (and blog about at Polygons and Pixels) and Dungeons & Dragons (and blog about at WebPageless). They’re a much more casual guild than Carpe Flux Capacitor, so it was fun to experience the game a bit differently and more like I did when I first started playing.
On my main, I ran each dungeon in Mists of Pandaria once for the story. At max level, I ran them for gear, and the goal was to get through them as fast as possible. With Olio de Oliva, we were just having fun running dungeons. It was nice to enjoy things at a slower pace. I do hope I wasn’t annoying though. I couldn’t help but chime in with additional information or instruction. Some of the players have been playing for a while, but some were quite new.
We ran Scarlet Halls, Scarlet Monastery, Razorfen Kraul, and Maraudon (my least favorite dungeon – ugh). Because we had more than five people online, we rotated. That was also really nice. Don’t get me wrong – I love raiding – but being bale to take a 20-30 minute break in the middle of group play is pretty nice. As we tried to make the groups work for different player rotations, we realized it’d be easier if I could tank as well. I tanked a little as a blood DK back in Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm, but it had definitely been a while. Sleepypaw was 30, so he just gained the ability to dual spec, so I picked up brewmaster. I spent a few minutes reading tooltips and arranging abilities, and then we bounded into a dungeon – Scarlet Monastery. It was confusing, and I was really unsure of myself. I kept asking if I was doing alright, but I seemed to be holding aggro. I had trouble with a couple abilities too. I kept not being at minimum range or not having enough chi. Eventually I think I understood when to use my different abilities.
Doing dungeons with a group of friends made me feel really nostalgic. It was an aspect of the game that I had been missing for a while. It was also pretty exciting tanking. Brewmaster seems like a fun spec. I’m also still enjoying seeing the Alliance side of the game!
I always grind Epoch Stones off the Jademist Dancers on the coast of the Timeless Isle. Today, on my 228th kill, one dropped the Jademist Dancer pet! I wasn’t grinding for that purpose, but I’m excited that I got the little guy!
A group of my friends have started playing WoW together casually on Friday nights. They invited me to join. It’s been years since I’d done anything group content like that – dungeons and the like. It’s a different feeling to play as a group while leveling compared to endgame where the goal is to plow through content for valor points. They had already started, so I decided to catch up. They play Alliance, and I’ve never spent much time on that side of the game. I was looking forward to seeing the Alliance story.
I decided to roll a pandaren monk. His name is Sleepypaw. You can see him sleeping with his bear cub watching him.
The starting experience on the Wandering Isle was pretty fun, but nothing too amazing really. I enjoyed it, but the worgen starting experience was so much better. I did like getting the chance to talk to Shen-zin Su, the turtle known as the Wandering Isle. I also particularly liked Ji Firepaw, a Huojin follower, Aysa Cloudsinger, a Tushui follower, and their relationship. It was interesting to see them get close and then see that relationship strained. Of course, I chose to follow Aysa into the Alliance.
After fighting Varian at his request, I became a full member of the Alliance! Stormwind itself is a beautiful city, and I enjoyed running around it. While Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff have natural beauty, and I do particularly like the view of Orgrimmar from above mostly because I think of it as my city, Stormwind and Ironforge have a really heroic and powerful feel. I spent a couple hours one evening just running around Stormwind. I ignored the map so I could try to learn the city, looking around and using Stormwind Keep as a point of reference.
After questing through Elwynn Forest, I headed into Westfall, which had a really interesting story. It did a good job of showing me how different the Alliance is. First, I helped a detective who was looking for clues to solve a murder. He even had little alarmbots circling the crime scene. I can’t imagine the Horde taking such a modern approach to murder. Yet on the other hand, I can’t fathom the idea of homeless members of the Horde – orcs unable to afford to live in Orgrimmar, starving and begging for food. That’s what we see in Westfall though. Well, homeless humans, not orcs. We learn that while the Alliance spent time and money winning the war in Northrend, they neglected things at home. Guards are posted to keep them out of cities, with signs warning transients to stay out of the area.
This is probably one of my favorite screenshots now. It wasn’t a rare angle or anything like that, but it was a powerful moment in the story.
After Westfall, I moved into the Redridge Mountains, where I joined Bravo Company and defended Lakeshire against Blackrock orcs. The most important thing that happened was meeting this girl who loves rabbits. I love rabbits too!
The zone was quite idyllic when there wasn’t killing or war. Here’s a nice screenshot. I suppose the skeleton undermines my position on the zone though.
The Bravo Company storyline was fun mostly because they tag along with you and say funny things. There’s a paladin who complains about the Light, saying that one day he feels like all his abilities are weaker.
Also, yes, Rambo references.
I’ve now made it to Duskwood and am level 30. I have full heirlooms for all three spec, so if my friends need me to tank or heal, I’ll have the gear for it (even if I don’t know how to play those specs). They might be a little higher than 30 now, but I think I’ve matched them approximately! I’ve had a lot of fun experiencing the Alliance side of things and am looking forward to more.
MMO-Champion user Mojo Risin posted a pretty neat idea that I had to mention here. He proposes a Mount 2.0 system with three things:
mount names
mount traits
new riding skills
I’m sure you can guess what mount names are. Mount traits are special abilities that each mount has such as providing a temporary crit bonus when the player dismounts or healing the player while riding. Each mount has one specific major trait and two empty minor trait slots. Once you have a mount, you’ve unlocked that trait. You can use unlocked traits in a lesser form in minor trait slots. In other words, you can’t change a mount’s major trait, but you can equip a mount with two minor traits, which are lesser forms of other traits you’ve unlocked. It’s an interesting idea, but there’d be balance issues. I’m not saying it couldn’t be done, but it would be a decent chunk of work.
How about new riding skills? His proposed Mount 2.0 system would allow you to train a new riding skill that increases land mount bonus speed to 125% as well as giving your mounts an additional 25% movement speed bonus when riding on roads and 10% on paths. I think these are fantastic ideas!
The system offers a number of interesting improvements. The traits sound fun, but there could be ramifications. The road and path system, however, should be implemented immediately!
Carpe Flux Capacitor, the guild of which I’m a member, defeated Garrosh on March 10. Since then, we’ve been inactive awaiting Warlords of Draenor. I realized that I might think to myself, “boy, remember all those good times I had raiding? It was always a positive experience.”
Now I have this video to remind me what it was really like. This is the last few seconds of every progression wipe we had in Siege of Orgrimmar.
We’re going to be recruiting for the next expansion, so maybe we could use this to remind new recruits what they can expect!
All kidding aside, wipes are to be expected. I just thought it was fun.
We finalled stripped the mantle of Warchief from Hellscream and liberated Orgrimmar! According to my count, it was on the guild’s 45th attempt.
I’m happy to finally complete normal mode. This might be it for the guild for a while; I know a number of people are looking forward to a break. I think the guild will take a break for a week or two and then see who wants to continue.
I won loot from my bonus roll – a tier token! I turned it in for the fifth and final normal-mode healing tier piece. I don’t think I’m going to use because my off-tier is better in that slot, but I’m glad to have the option
Normally I include a montage of our deaths before the kill video, but with 43 failures, it would take me a while to edit them and render the video, plus it would make the video pretty long. You’ll have to live with the kill video alone. Of course, I doubt anyone really cares to watch our kill videos, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Unfortunately, I had WoW’s audio routed through my speakers and Mumble through my headset, and somehow FRAPS only picked up Mumble. No WoW audio in this one. Oh well.
You can read more details about the kill on the Carpe Flux Capacitor kill announcement.
I’m pretty excited to finally share this. I painted this Horde plate and Horde mug at Color Me Mine! In case you’re not familiar with the chain, allow me to briefly explain. Color Me Mine lets you choose and purchase ceramic pieces. Once you’ve chosen, you paint the piece there in the studio. They fire it while you go about your week, and a week later you can pick up your finished piece.
Because I’m more excited about the mug, I’ll talk about the plate first. I painted this on February 22 of this year. We were celebrating Mooglegem’s birthday!
If I spend too much time on details, I won’t be able to finish in a single evening and will have to return multiple times. To avoid that with this plate, I tried to keep it simple. I based the Horde symbol on the way it appears on the banners at the Shrine of Two Moons in Mists of Pandaria. It’s clearly Asian-inspired. The plate’s simple, but I’m pretty happy with it!
This mug is a much bigger deal. I’m so happy to finally have it completed. I don’t remember when I started it, but I do know that I signed and dated the bottom, and when I checked today, the year on the bottom was 2012.
I put a lot of work into this. In fact, it took me much longer than a single session. I probably went at least five times, spending hours each time. There was some other stress involved as well. Normally, you pay for the piece and you pay a studio fee to paint. If you purchase one piece or three pieces, the studio fee remains the same. If you don’t finish and bring a piece back, you don’t need to purchase the piece again, but you’d need to pay the studio fee again.
This side’s pretty boring. My intent with the colors here was to get that metal look with which Garrosh infused the Horde. Those circles were supposed to be metal rivets. I don’t know how well that came across.
I spent so much time on the mug that the Color Me Mine at which I purchased the piece closed. However, they had assured me when I began that I could take it to any store to continue working on it. The manager at the other store, however, seemed pretty upset by it. He made a big deal about how he can’t profit if I’m not purchasing from him. I guess he didn’t think the studio fee was high enough. Regardless, he was very huffy about the whole thing but let me work there, and I eventually finished. I’m not very artsy usually, so it was a big deal to me.
As a troll, I had to include some Darkspear love of course. Too bad a crack runs through the right mask.
A week after I finished painting, I went to pick up my piece, and it wasn’t really a piece. It was a bag of pieces. It had exploded in the kiln, which happens sometimes. I asked to look at the pieces because I was curious how it turned out, so the woman working there handed me the bag. A few moments later, she told me something about how she’d throw the pieces away for me, but I told her that I still wanted to keep it. She told me that they can’t let me do that because the sharp pieces are dangerous. This seems rather dumb to me, because I could always break a piece and then cut myself on it, right? Well, I told her that I really still wanted it. I think it helped that I was still holding the bag, and I honestly wasn’t going to give it back to her. I had already paid, I didn’t consider theft, and I doubt she would have physically stopped me. Luckily, she said okay, although she did make me sign the back of the receipt after she wrote something about how they wouldn’t be held responsible if I hurt myself.
The handle has a vine wrapping around it. It took a while to do that due to the shading.
I kept the bag in my room for a long time. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. There was lots of conflicting advice on what type of glue to use and how to fix it. Rather than choosing something, I kept putting it off.
When I painted the Horde plate, Mooglegem and I chatted with the staff, and one woman mentioned being able to glue pieces together there in the store. When I picked up my plate, I brought my mug with me, and they glued it back together for me!
For those wondering, the Color Me Mine in Tustin, CA on El Camino Real is a great business, and the people who work there are terrific!
The vine reaches the top and wraps around the inside of the mug.
It’s not safe to drink from it, but I created it for artistic reasons, not utility. I’m really pleased to have them completed. Now I just need to figure out where to display them!
Oh, and I suppose that the cracks just add to the representation. The Horde are the outcasts and underdogs. Individually we might be broken, but we come together! It’s apt that I didn’t get this glued together until after the Siege of Orgrimmar as well. Even though the Horde has been shattered, we piece ourselves back together!
I finished Silverpine Forest with my warlock this weekend. The story was quite good. I particularly enjoyed listening to Sylvanas early in the zone as she recounts the history of the Forsaken. There was nothing I didn’t already know, but it was an incredibly powerful speech that really gives a great idea of who the Forsaken are. Here’s a great video of the quest I found.
Simply amazing storytelling.
I know that a lot of people seem to think the end of the zone contains the great story moment, and yes, that was cool too. (I won’t say what happens.) But it didn’t compare to this speech.
We awakened the Paragons of the Klaxxi, so it’s only fitting that we put them down too. Tuesday we fought the Paragons for the first time. On our eighth attempt we managed to kill them.
No loot for me, but as usual, I prefer progression over loot. We’ll be seeing Garrosh on Thursday hopefully. I might go shadow for the fight, which could be fun.
After a terrible LFR run last night, I wanted to do something new. Having never tried Proving Grounds, that sounded like an interesting thing to try. The bronze and silver healing challenges were very easy, but I couldn’t quite get gold. I felt a little better later when I read that it scaled gear. At first I thought I was failing even though I was so over-geared. I’ll have to take a look at how the scaling works later. If everything scales equally, then I definitely want more spirit. In my normal gear I cap my spirit pretty low compared to what I could have. We’ll see.
I also tried the DPS Proving Grounds as disc. Bronze was ridiculously easy, but I was about a second or two short on silver. I’m pretty confident I can do it though! Of course, I could switch to shadow too, but I want the achievement for doing it in the wrong spec.
Alright! We downed Siegecrafter Blackfuse on Tuesday. Yes, maybe it took 21 attempts, but we killed him regardless. No loot for me, but I’m happy to be continuing forward. The Paragons of the Klaxxi seem complex yet, if LFR and flex’s trend applies in normal, easy. Will we get to see Garrosh Thursday? I’ll find out soon I suppose.
We ran the fourth wing of flex on Saturday night, and I ended up having a blast. I grabbed a few PUGs at the beginning, but most of them left. We ended up with fourteen of us – all friends except for a single PUG. It was a lot more fun than joining a flex group of people I don’t know. Of course, it has its drawback; if you want to play with friends, you have to coordinate a time. I suppose that’s a big trade-off in WoW all the time. One of our hunters got the heirloom from Garrosh, and our undergeared players all got some loot from the wing. I wouldn’t mind doing this more in the future.
Last night we defeated the Spoils of Pandaria on our fourth attempt. Not bad! It felt like more honestly. The fight went pretty smoothly. I’m glad we’re making rapid progress.
No loot for me, but that’s okay.
We also managed to kill Thok the Bloodthirsty on our eighth attempt. This was a much rougher fight than the Spoils of Pandaria. I think we were healing too long and keeping Thok in that interrupt phase too long. At first we were getting him to around 66% health before transitioning, but maybe that was allowing him to hit the tanks too hard. Honestly, we didn’t have a problem keeping the tanks up in that phase, but a tank would almost always get one-shot in the second interrupt phase. We were probably using too many CDs on the first one. Anyways, once we went with much shorter phases, things went better.
I won gloves that I’m not going to use right now I don’t think but could be useful later depending on how tier works. I also won the tier helm! That’s great, because it would give me four-piece if I choose to use it with the LFR tier legs that I didn’t use yet. Unfortunately, AskMrRobot shows that I’ll take a significant loss if I used the four-piece because I’d be changing from Warforged normal legs to LFR legs. It’s better to use the higher ilvl gear without four-piece for now. I’m hopeful that I’ll get another piece though. If not from normal, even a flex one would probably be great. I have normal chest, hands, and head tier, and LFR legs. My non-tier shoulders and legs are Warforged normal, so we’ll see.
You can check the guild kill announcement here or our log at World of Logs.
I’ve been running a lot of old raids recently in an effort to collect old tier gear. While i Was in Molten Core, I got this Core of Hardened Ash, which teaches the Ashstone Core. Pretty cool. Not done with this tier yet though.
I also obtained the Jewel of Maddening Whispers from AQ. It teaches a Mini Mindslayer. I particularly dislike gathering gear from the AQ raids. I don’t like having to deal with idols and scarabs. Ugh.
While I was in there, I did manage to hit exalted with the Brood of Nozdormu though. Yay! I’m almost done collecting gear from the AQ raids.
By this point, my bags were super full. I had to figure out a way to free up some bag space. One thing I did was spend my Spirits of Harmony on archaeology. I earned the What was Briefly Yours is Now Mine achievement for finding enough rares, but more importantly, I got this cute little Pterrordax Hatchling!
I’ve been playing a lock recently, which is only a big deal because I don’t usually play alts. My primary motivation is to see the quests from the 1-60 Cataclysm content. After finishing Tirisfal Glades, I made it to Silverpine Forest. I felt excited just walking into the zone. Wasn’t Silverpine Forest really boring before the Shattering? It was exciting now, but the fact that I like Forsaken architecture and design probably helped. And the scene in which Garrosh arrives to talk to Sylvanas at the beginning? Excellent.
We killed the Kor’kon Dark Shaman as a guild for the first time yesterday! We extended last week’s lockout so we could start right on progression. I even managed to get a warforged mace off my bonus roll – Kardris’ Scepter.
I decided to run Blackwing Lair tonight for an attempt at transmog gear. When I defeated Razorgore the Untamed, I got an Unscathed Egg containing this Untamed Hatchling. I’m guessing the drop rate is pretty decent, but I’m happy.
I’ve earned a few other random achievements lately. I did some achievements in Obsidian Sanctum, Onyxia’s Lair, and Naxxramas recently. This weekend I earned To All The Squirrels I’ve Loved Before, To All The Squirrels Who Shared My Life, To All the Squirrels Who Cared for Me, and To All the Squirrels I Once Caressed? That was a lot a critter /love’ing. Yesterday I also earned Thirty Tabards and, while flying over the Jade Forest, accidently earned Explore Jade Forest and Explore Pandaria. Pretty nice!
I forgot how much I enjoyed this dungeon until I ran it the other day. It’s fairly straight forward but has amazing atmosphere. Bronjahm, the Godfather of Souls, is an awesome boss, but even more awesome is his music.
Okay, his sounds are pretty entertaining too.
I ran it last week just for the achievements – Soul Power and Three Faced. I feel like I spend most of my time in WoW running things for progression, but I think I want to go do this again, and I just ran it a few days ago. It’s just too good.
I’ve been branching out in WoW a bit lately, finishing some things besides just doing my LFR or flex. First, I finished the dungeon achievements for the ICC heroic dungeons. Next, I got the mount from a OS 3D 25-man run, the Twilight Drake! I know it’s old content, but I do like the mount.
I also finished the last two achievements I needed for Glory of the Hero. First, there was Dehydration. This is for killing Ichoron in Violet Hold without allowing any of the globules to merge. It was fairly simple. My final one was Respect Your Elders. It’s funny, because I remember that requiring strategy. You have to defeat Elder Nadox in the Old Kingdom without killing his adds. The adds make him immune to damage when they’re near him, so you’d have to tank the adds away from him. Back in Wrath, I suppose that would mean two people need to be able to survive a lot of damage. Now it means you just start DPSing the boss, and a second later he dies. And then you get a Red Proto-Drake if it’s your last Glory of the Hero achievement!
On the same night I earned that, I did some achievements in the Lost City of the Tol’vir with the same friend who was helping me do these other things. She earned Headed South on Siamat, which gave her Glory of the Cataclysm Hero and the Volcanic Stone Drake! We’re on our new mounts in the above screenshot.
It’s funny how little I know about a lot of these instances. I have a couple alts (no alts are max), but I don’t really play them. I only saw most dungeons as I did them for gear while leveling and then never touched them again. I feel so lost in some instances and barely remember them. I must have coasted through Cataclysm on auto-pilot. I remember Wrath fairly well, but that was the expansion during which I first hit a level cap. In addition, I was out of school and didn’t have a job, so I spent a lot of time in game. Doing Wrath of the Lich King dungeons felt very nostalgic. Thanks for being a good expansion, Wrath.
I’ve been complaining a bit because I couldn’t manage to down Garrosh in flex. In fact, most groups couldn’t get past the first boss of Downfall. On Friday I listed myself for Downfall and got invited to a group just for Garrosh. It was super simple, and everything went extremely smoothly. It was a lot easier than most LFR groups even! Anyways, I’m happy to have completed flex.
It might not be guild progression, but I had some personal progression. Pepper asked me to join a PUG for Siege of Orgrimmar, so I decided to give it a go. It seemed like it was at least half of a guild run. We started at Galakras and made it through the Dark Shaman. It was my first time downing them!
It was actually a rather unpleasant experience. They were very rude to non-guildies. I stayed simply because I thought I had a chance at progression. Is that bad of me? Whatever.
I spent another three to four hours doing flex the other night. I’m attempting to get a Garrosh kill. On this particular night, I was never able to kill the first boss of flex 4. People wouldn’t know what to do, and that would cause other people to quit. We’d wipe and wipe and then fall apart. After four groups, I gave up for the evening.
It was very frustrating. I dislike LFR because it’s boring, but I dislike flex because if other people are bad, you’re just wasting your time completely. If I could just kill him once in flex, I’d leave him be!
Wednesday we had our one and only attempt on Iron Juggernaut, defeating him! It seemed like a strangely uneventful boss. I’d heard it was easy, but after a boss that had a group leaving to do their own thing in the towers on Galakras with comparatively complex mechanics, I don’t understand why Iron Juggernaut was even there! That said, he’s pretty cool looking, so I guess I get it.
You can watch our kill too. I forgot to start the video right at the beginning, but I remembered pretty early. Now that I’ve become the official kill poster on the Carpe Flux Capacitor guild website, I might as well link to our official kill announcement too.
Last week we finally killed Galakras! We were missing our main tanks and actually had to PUG a DPS as well. It was the first time we had raided in about a month due to attendance issues.
This was our 20th attempt when we finally defeated Galakras. I’m surprised it took so long, but I’m glad to see him die. Off to Iron Juggernaut this week I hope!
Another article on time travel. It basically explains, yet again, that Garrosh will be creating an alternate timeline that interacts with ours and not changing our past.
It took me a long time, but I finally got my 100,000th kill! You can now call me Devee of the Horde. It seems crazy how much I slowed down. I PVP’d a lot while leveling, spending much more time in battlegrounds that actually trying to level. After I hit 80, my first level cap, I began running heroics and old raids. When I applied to Carpe Flux Capacitor in December 2009, I had 37,787 honorable kills.
In February 2010, two months after joining Carpe Flux Capacitor, I had 50,000 HKs. After that, it took me close to four years to reach 100,000. Whoops. It always felt like there was something I needed to do to improve my gear for raids. I let myself down!
My 100,000th Honorable Kill was Elvion of Thorium Brotherhood. I’ve been playing a lot of Temple of Kotmogu recently. The small arena really lends itself to killing. I guess it’s as close to a 10v10 arena match as we’ll see. Now, do I set my sights on the 250,000 HK achievement? I’ll keep PVPing, but I’m definitely happy to have the “of the Horde” title!
Rossi has some very interesting theories about the Titans and time. He speculates that they’re from the future, and that they want to preserve the “true” timeline to ensure their own creation.
Warlords of Draenor sounds very cool and seems to be bringing a lot of great things. I don’t intend for this post to rehash all the news released at BlizzCon, but I still want to talk about my reaction.
The story
I love the direction of the story; Garrosh escapes and, with the help of the Timewalker Kairoz, travels back in time to Draenor. He stops the orcs from becoming corrupted by the Burning Legion and forms the Iron Horde. He then builds his own Dark Portal connecting that Draenor to our Azeroth. I know that anything relating to time travel can be confusing to people, but I kind of like that Blizzard basically told us not to worry about it and that there wouldn’t be any time paradoxes or consequences. I like it. It’s just an excuse for us to visit Draenor and interact with all the old orcs. Of course, this gives us a lot of potential. Seeing ruthless, old-fashioned orcs should be fun, and of course, experiencing Draenor will be great.
It could also be a vehicle for some interesting character development. What if Garrosh finds his father’s not what he expected? What if Grom thinks Garrosh is a failure? It’ll be fascinating. I also think Blizzard has a chance to do something great with Thrall. Thrall never had the chance to know his parents. We know Durotan is going to side with our Horde, but what if he’s different than Thrall imagined? Even if he’s a good guy, what if he’s still ruthless? What if he thinks the Horde is too soft? In addition, some characters could stick around after the end of the expansion. For example, Durotan could come through the Dark Portal to live on Azeroth.
I’m also fascinated by the idea of circumstance shaping a person, and I hope Warlords of Draenor examines this. I’d like to see some characters act very differently than they did in the original timeline due to the changed events in their lives.
Stats and itemization
Hit was always a boring stat to me. There was no strategy or choice. You just had to get hit-capped. I’m glad to see it and its fellow not-fun stats removed. Movement speed could be a fun stat on gear as well. Plus, being able to move quickly and get back to DPSing or healing means a DPS/HPS boost.
Having gear change to match the wearer’s current spec is very interesting. It means you can use more gear but that there’s more competition. Ultimately, I think it’ll make the game much more offspec-friendly.
Reforging seemed more needless than useful. On the other hand, it is nice to be able to change from a haste build to a crit build without changing gear. I almost feel like it would work better like changing specs. When you’re out of combat, you can could change builds. Oh well. We’ll have to see what it’s like for gems and enchants to be less common as well.
Garrisons
Garrisons are effectively the Sunsong Ranch farm crossed with the companion mission system of TOR (or other games) with a dash of Warcraft RTS. Sounds intriguing. I liked the farm even though it felt like a grind at times, so I’m optimistic about this. Honestly, it’s more of an evolution of the idea of keeps and followers from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It could be pretty fun.
Updated character models
Honestly, I don’t really care about this. I don’t understand it. My character is a pretty portion of my screen. When I play D&D, my representation is, at most, a small metal figure that isn’t even using an accurate weapon half the time. However, a lot of people do care, so I’m glad Blizzard’s doing it.
Boost to 90
I completely understand how some people are bothered by this, but I’m not at all. I’ve never had two characters at the level cap. With the character boost, I’m more likely to get a second to level 100. It’d be nice to check out some other styles of play, because I’ve only ever had my priest at endgame. In addition, being able to boost to 90 combined with updated character models mean that people who haven’t played WoW before can immediately begin playing what is effectively a new, modern game. That’s great.
Collections and quest items
These might be my favorite changes. Currently, mounts and pets are in collections rather than items. In Warlords of Draenor, toys, heirlooms, and possibly tabards will be in collections as well. That’s so much bag space I’ll be regaining. In addition, quest items won’t take up bag space. Finally. I’m pretty excited. The only downside is that I lost all those toys I earned previously. Maybe Blizzard could check that I did those quests and award me the toys. Please, Blizzard?
Raid changes
LFR is still LFR. Flex will be called Normal. Normal will be called Heroic. Heroic will be called Mythic. LFR, Normal, and Heroic will all be flexible (1o to 25 people) and cross-realm. Mythic will not be cross-realm and will be 20 people. As a normal-mode raider currently (so a heroic-mode raider next expansion) in a guild that struggles with attendance, this is great news. We recruit so we have 15-20 people, and then we take everyone every week. Awesome! I do feel bad for current 10-man heroic guilds, but it won’t be my problem at least.
Dailies and dynamic events
Dailies will not be widely used. Great. Dynamic events like those from the Timeless Isle will exist in the world. Also great if not overdone. In addition, they talked about wanting to combine the ideas behind the Isle of Thunder and the Timeless Isle. I think Blizzard is on to something, and I like to see them iterating on the way content is delivered. A combination of these two is exactly what I want.
Story quests
The map will tell you where the next story quest is, and it also indicates how many story chapters you’ve completed. This is awesome news. In Mists of Pandaria, I finished all the zones before I started raiding, and I only did a dungeon once I got to it in the story. It made for a nice, cohesive experience, but it also meant I took longer to get raid-ready. In Warlords of Draenor, I’ll skip all the non-story quests and come back to them. This should speed up the process significantly.
PVP interface updates
I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with being able to see capping progress on the map and on the flags themselves. This is a welcome change.
Warlords of Draenor
I’m pretty excited about all the aspects of the expansion. I’ll admit, things could go wrong. The quests could be boring, or the new content delivery mechanisms could be boring. I won’t know until I see the content. But I’m feeling hyped to experience it. Of course, I’d like to defeat Garrosh in normal-mode first!
BlizzCon was this weekend, and I found the announcements pretty exciting. Despite living just twenty to thirty minutes from the convention center, I didn’t go. I think it feels less special as a convention because it’s so close, but I do watch the stream. I’ll be posting about some of the announcements and my feelings about them later. I have something more important to mention first!
What would World of Warcraft be without people with whom to play? Some of my guildies came down, and got to hang out this weekend. I’m second from the right, in the red shirt. I stole the pic from my guild leader, so hopefully she doesn’t mind. I went to dinner with three out-of-towners and Mooglegem on Friday night, and Saturday night the group of us above went to dinner. That includes four people I met (in person) this weekend, which was great.
In the photo, you might notice a cookie jar between a glass of water and a beer. Moogle baked cookies and brought them with her in that jar. While we in line at a restaurant, she handed them out to us. A girl behind us got excited, asking where we got the cookies. Moogle explained that she baked them and brought them with her. She seemed sad, and Moogle offered her a cookie. She got really excited, accepted, tried it, and then told Moogle how good it was! Later, when we were seated, Moogle offered cookies to our waiter and waitress. The waiter took one fairly early and thought it was great. It was later in the meal when the waitress accepted, and she also told Moogle how good she thought it was. A few minutes later, a different waitress came over to us, telling us that she didn’t know who baked the cookies but that her coworker shared a piece with her and she thought they were amazing. Moogle gave one to her too. Everyone loves cookies!
As for the content from BlizzCon itself, I was pretty impressed. I think Warlords of Draenor sounds very exciting and the changes are, generally, good ones. I’m also pleased with what I saw of Reaper of Souls. I’ve never played a MOBA, but I’m optimistic about Heroes of the Storm (and the trailer was fantastic). I’d actually not played Hearthstone in a while, but the convention made me excited to play once more. Adventures sound particularly cool! And I guess StarCraft was there. I don’t play it. I’ll post more in-depth about the announcements in the future!
We’re almost two months into the patch, so I thought I’d talk about some of the content. When the Timeless Isle was released, I was pretty excited. It was largely free-form content. In many ways, it mirrored the feeling of World of Warcraft when it was first released. I didn’t have particular expectations. There were no grinds of dailies. I was just able to explore and find things to do. I talked to Wrathion and his friends, got sent around the island, and met the Emperor. I killed some random monsters and did some platforming to find some treasure chests. I even bested the Celestials in battle, earned by legendary cloak, and fought Ordos. I was excited and incredibly happy with the Timeless Isle. I loved platforming to reach chests, and I particularly enjoyed getting carried by a bird to the top of a mountain.
Soon I began working on it a bit more. I wanted to complete the weekly so I could see the vision. I wanted to kill Yaungol so I could earn reputation with Emperor Shaohao. I wanted to get more armor from the island so I could use Burdens of Eternity on them, even if they’d only provide a small upgrade.
Soon I realized that there wasn’t an abundance of fun to reach chests. Platforming was very limited. The second week on the Timeless Isle, I didn’t quite finish gathering enough Epoch Stones to complete my quest and earn a vision. The next week I still hadn’t finished it. Fast-forward until today, and I’ve still only turned in the quest once and currently have 27/50 Epoch Stones.
Looking at my quest log, I see that I’m supposed to kill Yaungol for Emperor Shaohao, kill Elite creatures for Emperor Shaohao, kill Rare or Rare Elite creatures for Kairoz, and kill everything for Epoch Stones for Kairoz. These don’t scream fun to me. In fact, they seem pretty terrible. At least the Isle of Giant was even looser. This just feels fake. I have a few different quests, but really I’m just so run around killing things haphazardly. I primarily play to experience the content, see the story, and challenge myself. Challenge doesn’t really apply to this type of content, so let’s disregard that. I’ve already experienced the content. The Timeless Isle is now asking me to experience the same content again and again. I’m missing some story, but I feel like I’d be better off watching the visions on YouTube than continuing.
I do like PVPing, and I purchased the Censer of Eternal Agony, but I’ve never even used it honestly. I don’t really want to screw with people who are trying to get things done. I’d rather go do some battlegrounds. The Burdens of Eternity could provide me with some minor upgrades, but they’re not enough to really motivate me.
It’s really too bad. I’m not trying to say that the Timeless Isle is bad. A lot of people enjoy it, and that’s great. Unfortunately, it’s just not for me I suppose. When I first explored the island, it reminded me of the way exploring World of Warcraft felt for the first time. In many ways, it mirrored the experience of the game. That exploration is much more limited than implied. I understand what it wants and requires, and it offers a lot less than I originally thought. Perspective changes.
For now, I’ll fly out to the Isle once per week to spam smite at Ordos and to tag a Celestial right before the kill.
In this piece, Balkoth, one of my favorite WoW bloggers, discusses the importance of the role of gear in WoW. He also heavily quotes and responds to Rowan of I Have Touched the Sky. It’s a great read.
Rohan notes that there’s room for bad healers or DPS in LFR but not tanks. He speculates that increasing the number of tanks (while keeping encounters tuned for two) would make tanking more forgiving and possibly yield more people queuing as tanks. It’s a great idea.
Here’s another fantastic piece by Rohan. He provides an alternate explanation on gender bias in which he speculates that women prefer to stay at range while men prefer melee. It’s interesting.
I like that LFR is included, and I think it’s a great feature. That said, the experience is usually infuriating. People are usually under-geared, which is to be expected, but they also don’t know what to do and don’t listen to instructions. Honestly, LFR is open to everyone, and many people have never raided outside of LFR. I understand that it can be daunting. What gets to me, however, is when we wipe so many times and fall apart so much that it takes 2 or 3 hours to complete a wing. This happens pretty frequently, and it’s especially bad now that we’re in a new tier. Everyone’s yelling at each other, we have four stacks of determination, half the group drops, and I just want to finish.
Tuesday night after our raid, I decided to do the Vale of Eternal Sorrows in LFR. I was great on Immerseus, and we completed it in one attempt with no problems. The Fallen Protectors also went very smoothly, but I was beginning to get tired. We had no problems on Norushen either, but I was incredibly sloppy. I didn’t switch to adds, and I didn’t do anything but spam Smite and occasionally cast Penance or Holy Fire on the boss. By the time we got to the Sha of Pride, I was falling asleep. Sometimes I cast Smite on the Sha. Most of the time I did nothing. Yes, I was stacked at the correct spot, but I didn’t move. I didn’t fight the add. I didn’t use my healing CDs. Pretty much, I just slept.
Whoops. I was the bad that got carried last night.
Tuesday we cancelled our raid due to low attendance. We tried recruiting and taking trial members, but the couple that was planning on running with us restarted their computers and never returned. However, on Wednesday we breezed through Immerseus and the Fallen Protectors and finally completed the Norushen encounter! I got a belt, too. I think it was only on our second attempt of the night, although we wiped a total of 24 times.
Then we moved on to the Sha of Pride. If flex was any indicator, I expected this to be easier than the Norushen encounter, and I was right. We did wipe four times, but we defeated the Sha of Pride on the fifth attempt. Take that Sha of Pride! Who’s the best now? Us! Wait…
Hopefully next week we’ll be able to push into Orgrimmar itself!
Brewfast has always been one of my two favorite holidays – the other being Hallow’s End. (It’s too bad they’re so close together.) The year before last, I obtained my Brewfest Ram. I still needed by kodo, so I continued to run Direbrew daily.
This year, I got my Brewfest Kodo! It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I do like it a lot actually. The next day, I realized it was a bittersweet victory. Now what do I do with Brewfest? I have every token reward except for on the drinking hat, and I actually had that previously and destroyed it. I have my Wolpertinger, which I do love. Now I had both mounts. Was this is for the holiday? There wasn’t even a stein this year! I think I’ll do the ram riding, calling through Orgrimmar, Dark Iron fight, and Pink Elekks on Parade quest once each just for the experience. I really wish Blizzard had continued to update the stein yearly though!
earthwormgem
Peter (Devee)
Kor'kron 501st 