Tuesday 30 September 2008

Screenies - love them

I've been going through my screenies to put as many boss kills as I can find on our new, shiny Guild website and I came across this one from last Christmas (or whatever it's called in WOW - I forget now). Ahhh - the lengths some girls will go to try to get new pets :)


It didn't work - all I got was a letter telling me to delete the one kit I had so I could get another. Not quite what I was hoping for. It was a little disappointing - I hope Blizz do better this year - a third snowman kit would not go down well with Sephrenia. Yeah, I know, it's still September, but I'm cold and being cold makes me think of winter and winter means Christmas....

Thursday 25 September 2008

Toys and why I now want a mage

More messing in Dalaran... Saves time faffing about re-doing bloody talents every time I log on. I keep doing my talents, burying the paper on my desk, digging it out again, updating and then running out of time... Time, never enough time (that's a line from a film or something somewhere, hmmm - have to google and check - nope, can't find it).

Anyway. Shopping in Dalaran got better. The toy shop now has the following...


The car shot off before I got chance to screenie it, I forgot to do the zeppelin, but the gorilla looks like this.


Basically they are one use things, but fun all the same - I can see races with the car and lots of Zeppelin throwing before raids - more fun than a happy rock or leather ball - you actually see the plane fly. (Will try to screenie the others some time).

I went shopping some more and found something else that made me want a mage - as if Polymorphing bears and penguins weren't enough (as well as the turtles and piggies)...


It's a shame I completely suck at playing a mage. Wonder if we can have something to nice for priests to make our shadowfiend look a bit sexier. A bunny rabbit (with nasty, big, pointy teeth) might be nice (look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide; it's a killer). Ah, a good bit of Monty Python always makes me smile :)

Monday 22 September 2008

Twas a peaceful day in Dalaran....

.... so I went exploring the sewers again.

There's potions lying about.


If you drink them they do this... hee hee - Tuskars... I like it.


As a Tuskar you can sit down..... you shuffle up your pants and sit... somewhat dejected looking, but very cute....


... it makes you want to sing and dance...


... Tuskars are also hungry, so it increases your fishing skill by 50 for the 10 minute duration of the buff.

Another potion and everyone looks different...


Pretty...


these are sewer guards (usually orcs I think - can't remember).

Finally, I found a shady dealer type down there who sells another pet...


With so many fun things to do it's no wonder I'm not even level 71 yet is it? Ah well, one day... maybe... when I can stop fishing, buying pets and their toys, mounts, doing cooking quests and such fun things.

Friday 19 September 2008

More completely useless Beta stuff for a Friday

Well, I had a little time to play beta today and of course rather than go quest, I wandered around Dalaran and found out some more useless but very fun and interesting things :)

You can now fish in Dalaran. There is a wishing well where you can fish up coins thrown in by people of old....


Next I went to the sewers to see what I could fish up there. I got some magic fishies...



They do lots of things to you....


and...


I bet you've never seen an emerald whelp fishing before :)

and...


The last one gives you a good view of the sewers - which has lots of arena people, shady dealers and it's own bank. It did have target dummies, but I think they've been moved somewhere else.

Finally I found the new mounts. A bear...


Reminds me of my very own husband, Barkie...


*Insert random smuttiness about riding my own bear*

And, just in case I ever get to level 80, I bought...


They DO look very cool.


Oh and how could I forget - I need to research where I can get me one of these little cuties.


Ah well - have a fantastic, fun filled weekend dear reader. I'll be back with more random nothingness next week.

Wednesday 17 September 2008

Birthday Crocs

Well, it's my birthday today, so I thought I'd try it on a bit when I saw it was the crocodile fishing quest....


I got a speedy response....


Not what I wanted, but hey - you can't blame a girl for trying :)

Sephirot was lucky - he won an [Eye of the Sea]. Lorienne was even luckier and snagged her second croc - she got a [Snarly's Bucket].

He's an agile little devil...


I just wish I could swap them over to Sephrenia....

Saturday 13 September 2008

Pet love

Well, rather than try to reset all my talents AGAIN in the beta, I did my usual cruise around Dalaran. They've now got guards you can ask for directions to all sorts of things.

Of course I needed a few more supplies from Breanni, and found the latest addition to her offerings..


Your pets will LOVE you if you give them one of these...


The heart stays there - AND it stacks with the clean pet sparklies.

There's going to be so much to do when I'm level 80 and not raiding, once WotLK is out. Wonder if I can still chat when I'm cleaning, feeding and playing catch with all my pets :)

Friday 12 September 2008

Not impressed with Human face changes

Well... this is Seph before she went to the beta....


and this is her after....


I know, I had my hair dyed, but I'm not impressed with the face changes. She now has piggy eyes, instead of big, soft eyes. Her lips are thinner and the nose is more pointy. I don't like it one bit. Don't change me Blizzard. It's horrible. I also look like I've eaten something that didn't agree with me.

I changed my hair back to see a better comparison - still don't like it....


Oh - I've just read a post at Banana Shoulders which implies the changes are not here to stay - happy news.

Thursday 11 September 2008

Lurker Down! Nice present for Sephrenia

My lovely guild went to SSC on Monday. We didn't have our resistance geared tanks, so skipped past Hydross and went to play with The Lurker Below. We had 4 tries and each one was more successful that the last, but some people were having challenges with the spout. Still, it was good practice.

Wednesday's progress raid came around and we went back again, with a little more reading, clearer tactics and more determination. The trash clearing was our typical messy scramble, but we pulled it off with one one wipe due to an oops pull. But was all one of our mages fault last night (he won our blame roll - a roll we do at the start of a raid to decide whose fault it is for anything that happens - strange that it often seems to be the mages that win it, but then we do have more than our fair share of mages).

Anyway - we got to Lurker, explained all the tactics, practiced getting into the water and out again and set off fishing. We had a specific order of killing things in phase 2 - melee mobs (avoid the cleave), one on the little islands and keep one sheeped. A few Battle Resses, lots of shouting on vent to avoid the spouts and 14 minutes later the big fishie was down. A guild first - fantastic.


Everyone was ressed and we looked at the loot - Squeee - [Earring of Soulful Meditation] - the ONE thing in the game I've wanted for sooo long and was willing to lose my number one spot on our Suicide Kings list for - I was sooooo happy. THE best priest trinket in the game is mine - all mine (laughs evilly). Our main tank got some [Hammer thing] he was after too. Oh and there was [something] for one of our trees.

So - it was 20 minutes until the end of raid - where to next? Let's take a look about...


We decided that she was probably a tank and spank job and (after losing a few people who were worried about spending 5g on repairs and wasting time having a fun wipe) we set to her. Hell, if we can get Rage Winterchill to 1% twice, surely some watery tart will be a piece of cake!

We got her to 75%.... and with only 23 of us.... (probably more like 21 as 2 sneaky people seem to be out of range according to my grid settings - chickens)...


It got a bit messy then - she summons water elemental thingies and a big tendril guy comes wandering over. He wasn't much fun. We died - quite fast actually. Even though we wiped on Vashj (what a surprise), we all had a great evening - new boss down - paid a visit to the last boss - and all in 2 hours. We're going back on Monday to see who else we can show some "Common Sense" madness to.

Monday 8 September 2008

Clean and Sparkly Pets - if only my Dog was as easy to groom

Well, mooching about in Dalaran on the beta (hoping no Death Knights were using Unholy Blight Rank 2 and crashing the server), I visited Breanni for more fetch balls and found the following...


A pet grooming kit. I tried it out... poof a blue puff of smoke....


and a shiny, sparkling clean pet ...


Blizzard certainly know how to keep this pet collector amused :D

Wednesday 3 September 2008

FINALLY - a crocodile pet

Well, after MONTHS of fishing quest, one of my characters got a crocodile pet. It's a shame that it wasn't Sephrenia, but still - it does prove they exist.



Also - beware of Gnome mages. Their eating habits have a strange effect on their digestive systems.... I think it might be time to change my in game boyfriend :)

Tuesday 2 September 2008

What is worse than wiping at 1% on Rage Winterchill?

.... Wiping TWICE at 1% on Rage Winterchill.

So we went back for a second look at MH. People had farmed their PVP trinkets, bought (or made) potions and food. We felt good.

Of course, we are not called "Common Sense" for nothing. While most of us were gathering around the portal entrances someone who was not in our first MH venture wandered in to check the place out. He saw a pretty lady he could speak to, and of course he broke the ultimate law of instances - to quote from Wowwiki "As players should have learned at this level of progression, talking to NPCs can be dangerous, even if they're friendly". I had to hold some of the guys back as Jaina shouted for help and we watched as he died. Still, at least he learned how to run back to the instance :)

We had a few new people, so we went through the tactics and began the event. First try we got to the boss and got him to 45% or so as it was the first time we had seen him and people needed to learn and adjust to his attacks.

Second try was amazing - we got him to 1% - the noise on vent was incredible. Every try we have had in the instance over the 2 nights we have been there, we had improved. What was the "only" improvement on a 1% wipe? Someone said "a 1% wipe with him on less health" - we achieved it, sadly.

By this time it was getting late and people had to leave so we called it.

This is the kind of stuff I read in other people's blogs, not my own. It would be funny if it hadn't happened to us. Ah well, we'll try again and next time I feel sure we will get there. A few of the guild need trinkets, some need to work on their dps.

The trouble with my guild is how do you tell a dps person who has less dps than the tank how to play their character that they have played for so long. If we had taken a few different people along, I'm convinced that we would have got him down, but how, in a "casual" raiding guild do you tell people that they just don't make the cut, when tools like Be Imba tell them their gear is good enough to go somewhere. It's a tricky one and goes back to my post of the other day - that one was more about people not having the right gear for a raid, but also can be extended to skill I think.

I think the new guild council has some work cut out for it to help people to improve not only their gear, but also their ability. Maybe the time has come to stop being NICE (definition: Nothing Inside me cares enough) and start teaching people in a different way and help them develop as a player, not as their character. Unfortunately some folks (me included) mistake caring for "kindness" and avoid anything "negative". I wish "criticism" didn't have a negative connotation, since an open mind and willingness to achieve greatness, along with some good criticism, can be a recipe for amazing success. I wish I could work out a better way to help people.

Ah well, deep enough for today - back to pets, funny stuff and trying to get add-ons working in the beta.

Monday 1 September 2008

More completely useless WotLK information

I have decided that I'm going to leave all the theorycrafting to others. I am on the search for strange, useless, fun, funny and "real" stuff. I'm going to test all the "girlie" things that I get the most enjoyment in the game from.

So - in the beta I want back to Netherstorm to buy a load of pets that I did have in the bank, but had sent them to an alt for safe keeping when I needed space to level tailoring and forgot to send back before I transferred Sephrenia. I earned the achievement "Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart" for having 50 pets and got a mail from Breanni...


it contained...


He's soooo cute...



Today I found somewhere to spend my time in Dalaran.


She sells [Chocolate Celebration Cake] which is perfect to share with my new found beta testing friends Softi and Auric. Was lovely to meet the two of you in game last night - when I get bored of silly stuff I'll come questing with you or maybe we can try an instance. Hide not fellow WOW bloggers who are part of the EU beta test. Come play with Sephrenya - she has cake.