I am moving

I am moving to Wordpress...

Find me here and update your feeder thingie there if my automatic one that should do it from here has failed.

I'm a bit new at all this technical stuff.

Hope you like the new site... it needs a fair bit of playing with, but I'm quite excited about the possibilities with it. The template might change too - I'm still messing with the whole look and feel, but decided to move and then fiddle.

Quiet times - but busy too

Things have been a bit quiet for me. Well, actually, they have not. We've had a run of guild drama that has left me somewhat exhausted and quite sad. I don't want to share it, even here in MY space, so I'm not going to discuss that. Instead I'm going to fill you in on what I've been doing to take my mind off things.

Reputation. I decided that I wanted some more tigers. I have the Black War tiger - yes, dear follower, I actually did some pvp a long time ago in order to get my 30 of each token so Seph could have a tiger. At the time it seemed easier than grinding rep or farming cloth. Since the change in the way you earn reputation things have got a bit easier. The only place I was exalted with was Stormwind. Because I have played Night Elves, I know their starting area so decided to begin my reputation grind in Teldrassil.

I had enormous fun smacking level 1-4 boars with my staff and managed to level up my skill to 390 odd. It was incredibly therapeutic to wander up to a Grell and hit it to death with one shot. I thoroughly enjoyed running through Ban'ethil Barrow Den beating up the teddies - those buggers had it coming for being so horrible to my poor rogue about 3 years ago.

It took me about 2 or 3 hours to do all the starting level quests and a fair few I found in Darnassus too. I achieved my exalted status (what no shouting achievement - boo hoo) and bought 6 tigers.


A few days later I had a bit more free time and headed off for the Gnome / Dwarf start area. I have never had a Gnome or Dwarf. I just can't seem to make one that looks pretty enough for me. This was a whole new area for me. And it was just as much fun and provided just as much therapy. (Not quite as much therapy as buying a Kirin Tor ring did, but therapy all the same).

Took me a bit longer to finish up my Ironforge rep, but I managed it in another evening. I headed off to buy my rams (and a rabbit to stick up on the neutral AH - tidy little 25g profit there - might have to do a few more).


Finally I managed an achievement for all my work...


I was a little disappointed when I tried to buy a mechanostrider. I didn't know there was a gnomeregan exiles faction (d'oh). So - back to Ironforge and I picked up all the Gnomeregan quests - I can't quite believe I've never done all those early quests (but was also somewhat relieved that I hadn't). Gnomeregan fell (again) to the might of Sephrenia....

I noticed this bit of chat from Techbot I'd never seen before which made me giggle...


I've still got quite a bit of work to do on my Gnomer rep - I'm trying to decide whether to chase about the world doing quests for rep, or farm runecloth, or buy it. I think I will see how the week goes and decide.

I did some raiding.


That is the Heroic Achievement Heroic: Momma Said Knock You Out. Given the improvements in gear most of our guild now have it was an easy one and saved me from my MC duties - hurrah!

I did some fishing for +hit food ready for Razuvious. My little green dolly kept me company.


Next up is the Exodar and all the quests there so I can get some elephants and my "Ambassador" title. Then I might try to get enough money to travel about Outlands and buy up all the mounts I can there and maybe, just maybe get a white drake for my troubles.

Oh - as an aside - my son has been playing his Orc warrior and working with his guild very hard on the Sarth +3 drakes achievement. Last night they managed it! He was fast off the mark with his roll for the Twilight Drake and rolled a 100. He's such a lucky little devil. He went to bed amazingly happy and I think the smile was still etched on his face this morning.

Guild Bank Robbery

On Monday evening we had a couple of great raids. We finished off Naxx 25 (horsies, dragon and the big guy), then went and had a quickie OS (killing all the dragons because we didn't have a lot of time). I goofed up a bit with our suicide kings so settled in Dalaran to sort it. The rest of the guild went off fighting in IF defending the king against a horde invasion who were probably quite surprised to see a fully raid buffed reception party when they stormed the throne room!

Anyway - I got a whisper from someone who said he was one of our Council member's bank alt and could he get an invite. I invited him and promoted him without a thought. Twenty minutes later I decided to go to IF to see if there were any horde left. There weren't. Then I decided to go check how many Abyss Crystals we had in the GB to see if I could ask for some for an enchant of a new staff I won that evening.

The bank was empty. I thought it was an add-on of mine and asked in Officer chat for someone to check. The new bank alt logged off very quickly. It was true. The bank had been completely cleared (all 4 tabs) and 500g (the limit for Council withdrawals) had been taken.


Three Council members immediately submitted tickeets to a GM. The new Council alt disappeared from the guild list (showing the character had been deleted).

I felt sick. Violated. Hurt. Stupid. My son said it was one of the oldest tricks in the books. Everyone was really nice to me, but I didn't feel a lot better. I've not slept properly for the last 2 nights. The poor Council member whose name was used to make the alt felt awful too.

Speculation raged... could it have been a guildie (I seriously doubted it), was it someone with a grudge against us (we don't let people aged under 25 in unless they know someone in the guild), .... all sorts.

On Tuesday morning a GM contacted one of the Council and took more information and told us that it would be escalated and investigated.

This afternoon (Wednesday) we got news that all our items had been returned to the Guild Master (a level 1 alt of one of our members - non Council). We had 5 or 6 pages of mails containing all we had lost (but no gold).

I am so relieved. We have put new policies in place now so that an alt can be invited to the guild, but that the Council member who it belongs to must promote it. We only have on bank tab that guild members can withdraw from and they can only take one stack a day. We are trying to decide if we need to limit Council alts at all, but some of our Council alts are currently the Council member's key raid character so that seems a bit harsh.


It has been one of those life lessons but the guild was fantastic - pulling together, offering to farm more stuff, craft things, pay money. It's been wonderful in that respect. But please, please review your guild's policies on inviting alts and also on the rights your Officers and members have to withdraw from the guild bank (in particular gold, as this was not refunded by the lovely GMs).

PTR fun - Sandbox Tiger

Well, I was browsing through my reader list today and came across the latest PTR news - well, the latest news that actually interested me. Most of it I'm happy to wait to try out - the new talents, the spell changes and all that sort of stuff. But this - this caught my attention! It's coming in the new TCG packs - the latest Loot Cards.

On the PTR there is a code you can type in to try the new toys from Landro Longshot...


Barkie is worrying that I'm going to start spending all our hard earned real cash, but I'm not - I've been and tried it, I've had my fun...


You set out your toy spectral tiger and can then click to get on it like any other vehicle...


Wheee!


That made my day. It's those silly things that I love best about WOW.

It's been a while...

... I've just not been in the mood to write really. The kids were off school for a week and it's taken me a bit to recover. I also had a tummy upset, which didn't help. Then I had a lot of clearing up and sorting out from having 2 weeks doing very little.

So - what has Seph been up to?

I finally got my Sons of Hodir things done so I'm at least friendly. When I get the motivation I'll push to honored, but I'm not going to grind. I just can't be bothered. I did have a giggle at some of the quests though. I loved the way when you used one of the guys as a vehicle, instead of being on their shoulders as I expected, they picked you up in their hand and carried you along.


When I finished one quests, the guy carrying me dropped me and caused me 2k of damage. Bit rough those Hodir boyos.

I finally got round to beating Halls of Lightning Heroic as well. I had one dreadful try on Loken several months ago and have never been back, but this week cast that aside and did the whole place. Managed to get a few other achievements along the way in there too.

The highlight for me of this last week has been BWL. We managed to scrape together 14 or so guildies and venture in. It was, however, horrible riding to Blackrock Mountain for me. It brought back all sorts of hideous memories from my hardcore raiding days. Struggling to get there on time, fighting hordes and dying lots and playing my rogue. I just can not recall why I ever rolled a rogue, or how I managed to level it to 70.

But - it did remind me what I love about my current guild and why I gave up trying to be a 17 year old with no responsibility to move here.

BWL, even though I loved it, was almost a let down. It was so easy. The bosses were barely distinguishable from normal mobs. Vael went down before we started the fight almost. It was odd. Until we got to Nefarian.

Can I just say - who named him? What kind of a person names a key bad guy VICTOR? They may as well have called him Kevin (apologies to all Kevins).

Anyway - we had a few learning experiences - not many of us had cloaks, we had a lot of mages (was hilarious seeing giraffes and cos and stuff wandering about), but in the end we got him and I have another achievement that I am proud of. Even if I am 20 levels too late, I am pleased to have cleared BWL having only ever tried Nefarian once when I had the right level.



Finally - for my old guild friend Verenus - here is a screenie of the quest they named after you...


How cool is it to have a quest named after your character. Now there's an idea for a tag, meme thing - if you had a quest named after your character in WOW what would it be? I'll have to think about that one for Seph, but it would probably involve helping someone, hugging and chocolate somehow...

Ulduar - bleurgh!

Well, all the excitement is about Ulduar and from what I've read I don't want to go. It seems the first boss will be a mechanoid sort of thing where you will have to fight through waves of army vehicles on vehicles of your own - siege weapons, tanks, motorbikes and the like.

I play this game to play my character - I heal. I have 11 or so heals at my disposal. I even use most of them from time to time. I work on my gear to tweak my skills and abilities. WHY on earth would I want to go with 24 other people and mess about in a vehicle or on a motorbike with 5 or 6 controls, of which 1 or 2 might be heals?


These are the reasons I hate vehicles.....

1. They don't work properly with my tweaked action bars.
2. They are "clunky".
3. They are all called the same thing - you can't differentiate between people easily.
4. I want to play the character I created, not one that someone else made for me that is the same as everyone elses.
5. They don't look pretty.
6. Just .. NO.

I hate Malygos phase 3, I have Wrymrest temple dailies, I hate Nexus dailies. I've not got very far with Sons of Hodir because you have to use other things - bears, dragons, etc. I don't go to Wintergrasp or Strand of the Ancients - not only because I hate pvp, but also because of the vehicle things.

If this is the way forward for WOW then Blizzard will be losing a player who has been with them over 3 years. And I don't think I will be the only one. Sad panda.

Some tips for Valentines achievements

Well, I've been doing all the Valentines achievements and noticed on various blogs some hints and tips, but thought I'd write some of my own as none of the guides seemed to cover it all as far as I can remember. This is Alliance biased as I don't have a Horde character.

First put on your Perfume (to talk to Male chrs - Most if not ALL the IF guards are male) or Cologne (for Female chrs - almost all if not ALL the Darnassus Sentinels are female). You can buy these from Innkeepers - get some love tokens while you are there. Get LOTS.

Pledges come from Guards (SW or IF) or Sentinels (Darnassus). You can get a pledge of Adoration once an hour, which contains one of the rare items (picnic basket, trueshafted or Silver shafted arrow, lovely black dress, love rocket, love fool, bag of candies, box of chocolates, handful of rose petals, unbestowed friendship bracelet). You always get a Card or Pledge of loyalty as well.

Gifts come from normal NPCs such a bread vendors. Again the "of Adoration" can contain anything listed above as well as one of the other items you need such as bread, brew or wood crafts (depending on the City). Be careful in IF - one if the wandering NPCs is actually affiliated to SW and will give bread not beer.

You can obtain the "normal" items any time - these are Cards, pledges and crafts. If you collect 5 of each thing - card, pledge and craft/food/beer you can combine them all to make a gift collection for the particular city (and get a buff for doing it - Agility in Darnassus, Intellect in SW and Stamina in IF - you can't have more than one buff at a time though).

If you collect all three city Gift packs you can create an Alliance gift pack which you take to Peddlefeet (he's in the King's room in IF). If you hand it in you get a reward of a Box of Chocolates and one of 5 of Arrows, Love rockets or Handful of petals. Give him a /kiss and you will receive a +200 health buff as well.

This means that you don't have to wait to receive all the items in your adoration once an hour thing. You can get your chocolates, rockets, arrows and petals by other means.

The Love fools - again you don't have to get these, but you will need a friend with them. You can /pity any fool that is in the location required, so if you don't get them in your gifts but a friend does you can follow them along for that part.

You can trade the lovely dress, fools, rockets, petals, pledges, cards and crafts/beer/food, but NOT arrows, chocolates, picnic basket, truesilver arrow or candies.


For the flirt with disaster achievement you need to remember alcohol to get completely smashed and your petals to throw on him and then you have to /kiss him. He is usually found wandering around the middle circle of Ironforge (surrounded by people).

You can follow your own way about the quest from the guy that leads to the coloured dresses or suits... it ends up out the back of beyond in Arathi - I've done it every year for 3 years, but I still struggle every year to find it!

Shoot people with arrows - easy enough. Cure people's hearts - Darnassus is good because there's never anybody there - stand by the bank or up the top of the ramp in the way out. In the square by the AH in SW is also good, as is the bridge in IF.

Dalaran is a good place to find the class/race combinations you need to throw petals on.

The easiest place to get a bunch of ebon roses is off the first boss in Utgarde Keep. Take a group and run it over and over until you all have what you want (it only drops for one person). Or do like I did and have such wonderful guild mates that they know you do mad things and want strange items that they will come with you JUST for killing the boss - /hug guys. I LOVE MY GUILD.