Screenshots

Day 29: Black

 The black and white effects the sha leave behind are kind of eerily pretty.

Day 30: All done.

Seish is all done killing sprites for the day.

And that wraps up my screenshots for Tycertank's November Screenshot of the day. Haven't decided yet if I'll take part in December. Probably not because of the holidays and going out of town, but I had loads of fun with these and want to thank her again for hosting it!

Happy Thanksgiving/Pilgrim's Bounty

Day 28: I am grateful for...

All these crazy people I play with! (And the ones who aren't in the screenshot too) This was from an old Well of Eternity Guild Run. We used to stop and take pics of our Night Elf incarnations at the beginning. Right to left: Syri (husband's mage), Divi, Roy (Os' retired priest alt), Alice (Ret's warrior alt), Nyv (my dk, who has a mohawk). Apologies for the editing. This was before I learned how to turn off names for screenshots.

     And in honor of Thanksgiving and Pilgrim's Bounty this is a post about the things in Azeroth I'm most thankful for.

-I'm thankful for this beautiful game which has given me numerous hours of fun and enjoyment.

-I'm thankful for my husband who is (mostly) patient with my playing it and who joins me in Azeroth for many adventures.

(Syri and Rim leveling)

-I'm thankful for my friend SprYte who got me into this by Recruiting me and giving me my copies of the game and BC. :D And who plays Roz and runs around with Seish when it's leveling time and joins me in all sorts of ridiculous silliness if I just ask her too. Actually I have to be grateful to SprYte for a great deal of the awesome in my life.

(Seish and Roz getting ready for a race through heroic Sethekk Halls. Because.)

-I'm thankful for my friend Os who was one of the people who welcomed me into the game when I first started and made it so much fun for me. Before she left for a bit she healed Rim through countless Cata heroics and helped me get my tanking confidence. Later she came back to it again and plays with me a lot.

(Os and Tai. One of the rare shots without Os' helmet)

-I'm thankful for my friend Yavi who finally gave into my pestering and let me recruit him into the game and helped me level Khaelyss and is generally just a wonderful person to be around.

(Yavi and Khaelyss and goggles)

-And I'm thankful for Divi and Ret (In the screenshot up top, but sadly not as present in my screenshot folder as I wish). They are part of our D&D crew and who are almost always game for helping with whatever we dream up in game too.

-I'm thankful for so many other people that I only know in game. All the people whose blogs I read that inspired me to make one of my own and who have been nice enough to read my silliness and add me to their lists. If I try to list everybody here I'll miss people for sure, but the ones I've been lucky enough to add to battletag and talk to in game (so far*) are: Kamalia, Matty, and Repgrind. But the rest of the awesome people in the Old Ladies Raiding Guild, I am thankful for all of you. I've had so much fun running with you!

    I love World of Warcraft. It's a fun game with so many things to do. But the very best things about it are the people I spend time with in it. And those people are what I'm the most thankful for this Pilgrim's Bounty/Thanksgiving. Thank you for existing and being awesome people!

*My battletag is PlaidElf#1103. I welcome blogger friends :D

Two Days of Screenshots and Miscellaneous stuff

Day 26: Message

A signal is sent out. But what Rhonin says? That's a message. I still love hearing it, no matter how often it happens now.

Day 27: No!

My first play through of the Jade Forest when the cut scene started with the fighting at the foot of the statue, all I could say was. "Oh no. Oh no." It still makes me so sad to see it.

     There'll be a Thanksgiving post later. But for now, had a good day today. Seish got one more Secret of the Empire. One more to go... and then it's on to the next random drop thing that'll take ages to collect. But I'm still happy about it. Tyl helped the littlest Death Knight run ICC with some awesome heals from Ret's Alliance Priest. It was fun. Os gave Fal a bunch of runthroughs of Stratholme and Fal now has portals! He's so excited.
     And on the note of Fal: Laen is leveling and his gear is a hodgepodge of mail and plate that just looks AWFUL. I may have to screencap the awful for posterity later. Fal on the other hand is also leveling, and his gear looks like this:

     I'll admit the wrists are mogged because he got some really ugly purple ones. But the rest of it's what he's actually wearing and aside from those boots being kind of... ahem... interesting on a guy I don't think he looks bad at all. (Though he is also awfully fiery looking for an arcane mage.)

Quirky

Day 25: Quirky

My friends and I do somewhat quirky things sometimes. SprYte's Dust and Tai decided to have an epic duel on the bridge outside Halfhill this evening, complete with bad movie dialogue. Since they're both healers the epic duel ended in a draw after a very long time. But it was fun and amusing.

Harsh Words

Day 24: A Word

Seish using the Glyph of Harsh Words. I have to wonder what he's saying. Apparently it hurts.

     I try really hard not to use harsh words in dungeons or raids. (Not the glyph so much as the stuff I type.)It's easier for me to remember not to do this on Laen because it'd be really out of character for him even when people do really dumb things. Also no matter what I'm playing, but especially on a healer, I try to make a point to tell good tanks they're good. Because it's always nice hearing you're doing a good job, and tanks tend to catch a lot of crap. Three cheers for good tanks. Laen loves you, Seish appreciates you keeping his surprisingly squishy plate clad self from taking the brunt of the damage, and Tyl tries to remember to keep growl off for you.

Old Ladies Raiding Guild: Firelands

Day 23: Simplicity

Orcish architecture seems simple until you look at the details a bit more closely. There are a lot of little details in WoW, in the end I couldn't find anything that seemed very plain and simple but still made for an interesting screenshot.

     Today didn't start off very well for me, but it ended up being pretty good. I had stuff in real life that made me late for the Old Ladies' Firelands run but they were kind enough to find a spot for Tyl when I finally got on. So at least I got to help down the last three bosses! And we did it! Did it quite well too. :D Ragnaros died even though we only had one healer (Go Mataoka!) and there was fire all over the place.

    Yay, we are conquering heroes! (Snowthorn sat out the fight so Bloodstone could be available for battle rezzing.) I need to get better at getting good screenshots of everybody. But that was lots of fun and did a lot to make me smile after a sort of crappy day. :) 

     Then to make things even better Seish queued into Wing One of SoO again and got three Secrets! In one run! Only two more to go. He also got the same pair of boots twice off of the Sha of Pride. They weren't an upgrade either time, but I don't even care. The RNG was still pretty nice to me this evening.

Day 22

Day 22: Behind

Behind the meat vendor in Thunder Bluff. I'd forgotten how pretty Thunder Bluff was.

Seish's Sunreaver Transmog

Day 21: I wish I had this

Rather than going for something that actually exists in the game I thought I'd dream big. Wouldn't Murozond be the most epic dragon mount ever?!

     Sometimes the game just seems to conspire against me to trick me into doing things I really hadn't meant to. I was pretty happy with Seish's current mog, I've always liked that set on him and I hadn't intended to change it for a while. But then the other day as I was doing the daily cooldowns I had an idea for the mog I've been wanting to do around the Sunreaver tabard. I dropped everything I was doing and spent a half an hour playing around with Mogit. And that is probably where it would have stayed except that then Seish went to pay Kael'thas his weekly visit. And Kael'thas didn't cough up the phoenix but he dropped the perfect sword for that transmog idea. That meant Seish was only missing one piece to make it work. 4,000 gold for a silly belt later... he's got some new clothes.

Sunreaver's Judgement

Head: Crown of Empowered Fate
Shoulders: Judgement Spaulders
Chest: Overlord's Chestplate
Wrists: Overlord's Vambraces
Waist: Lofty Belt
Hands: Judgement Gauntlets
Legs: Overlord's Legplates
Feet: Judgement Sabatons
Back: Recovered Scarlet Onslaught Cape
Sword: Twinblade of the Phoenix
Tabard: Sunreaver Onslaught Tabard

I'm still not really sure if this actually looks good to anybody but me, but I love it. It uses my favorite pieces of the overused Judgement Set but I think manages not to look too much like Judgement. That's one of my favorite helms, and the Overlord's Set is one of my favorite things to play around with because it's just basic and simple enough that it can work as a base for all kinds of things. I wish I could have found another pair of boots that worked better, but other than that I'm very happy with it.

Of Guilds and Raids and Such.

Day 20: Communication

Mailboxes in Azeroth are pretty darn amazing really, if you think about how they work. I love the fact that they have so many different looks too.

     Last night on sort of a whim we wrangled a few people together to try to do Dragon Soul. Five people in fact: Me (on Tai), SprYte on her shaman, Os (to tank), husband on Syri, and Ret's player on his monk, Taiki. We'd all LFRed it in Cataclysm and there was even one ill fated attempt at a guild run on normal where we wiped repeatedly on Morchok. We actually had enough people in the guild at one point in Cataclysm to get ten people to walk into a raid. Problem was that our guild has always been a small social guild so about half of those ten people were very undergeared and had limited rotation knowledge. And the same half had very little patience for wiping while learning fights.
     Most of those people no longer play but the rest of us walked in there last night, for the heck of it and the chance of transmog gear. It was nice getting to do the fights on normal, even if they're so easy with current gear that it's not really worth being very proud of. It was fun. We chattered in vent and made Syri take the mage tokens because nobody else could use them for mogging. We only got through half of it before bedtime, and then decided we probably should have been working on the achieves while we were at it. Maybe next week. Part of the reason for going in was pally mog gear for Os. So of course that meant we got no drops of those. Still it was a good night and I took some awesome screenshots of Nozdormu because he's very neat looking.

Cool guys don't look at insane, fire-breathing, world destroying dragons... or explosions. (And please Blizz can I have the option of sticking awesome tattoos like Nozdormu's on my characters?)

Happy 9th Anniversary of WoW!

Day 19: Where you ate breakfast

Since I can't really figure out how to screenshot my kitchen counter (There's a severe shortage of coffee pots in WoW) we'll go with where Laen ate breakfast. Laen had business with the paladin trainer in Orgrimmar so he ate breakfast at the Wyvern's Tail this morning instead of home in Silvermoon. He was not incredibly impressed with the food. (It was um.... hearty?) Or the decor (Rustic?) But he tries to be polite about things.

     I've been using the Anniversary boost to work on leveling a few characters. Every little bit helps, right? So Fal got from 35 to 38 yesterday, mostly from running dungeons with his priest traveling buddy and SprYte's only paladin tank. We did this this the old fashioned way, by riding a really long way on hawkstriders so we could walk into Razorfen Kraul and then Maraudon together. (The intrepid trio made a beginning attempt at the Warpwood Quarter of Dire Maul too but decided they'd come back to that later.)
     On the more solo front, Laen has finally reached level 50!

     So far, so good. Leveling really has been the best way for me to figure out how Holy works so far, and I've been having a lot of fun queueing for dungeons, by myself, as a healer! Something I never would have had courage for before Tai. I'm getting better and better at keeping up with tanks who run like their asses are on fire and at excusing myself if they die because  I was around the corner and down the hall and trying to catch up. I've tanked enough to know that it's partly the tank's job to pay enough attention to know where the healer is and it's out of my control if they don't do that.
     I'd taken a screenshot of Laen for a closer look at how he appears at level 50 in his terrible hodgepodge of mail and bits of plate, but he'd rather we didn't post it. Thanks to the lack of int plate heirlooms he can't actually make use of the plate specialization ability he just got... probably until he heads for Pandaria, so I've felt free to roll need on upgrade bits of mail as well if there's nobody in the party who can use them. Ten more levels until flying. :D

Day 18

Day 18: Mirror

Mirror Images.

Old Ladies Raiding Guild

Day 17: 5 O'Clock

This panda is doing what I'm usually doing at 5 in the morning.  But you can't buy alcohol from me then, so don't even try.

     Yesterday at 5 o clock (pm) though I was running with the Old Ladies Raiding Guild!

     After vanquishing Cho'Gall in Bastion of Twilight, and Al'Akir in Throne of the Four Winds we decided to go pay Illidan a little visit. Bet you can guess how that ended for him.
     Tyl got a new crossbow that I'll have to design a mog around, providing that I can find any purple mail that looks at all right with it. And in general lots of fun was had by all, I think. I certainly had loads of fun anyway. And am very much looking forward to Firelands. Which is what is planned for the next outing. Tea with Ragnaros. It should be lovely.
     It really has been so much fun getting to hang out with bunches of awesome people and slowly accumulating friends on my battletag list makes me very happy.

Women in Warlords of Draenor

Day 16: Play

Seish's guardian cub, Galahad, playing. Still one of my favorite companion pets in game because it is just so incredibly cute that it's ridiculous. It does the cutest little things while idle and flies along behind your mounts when you're on the move. Is it any wonder that this was the first pet I leveled to 25?

     Well, I can't miss all the posts now about the lack of female characters in the promotional stuff for the new expansion. I... have mixed feelings about this. For one thing I'd like to point out that there were two female orcs and an awesome looking female draenei in that cinematic. And that Frostwolf (I think) orc lady? She was awesome and kickass and really makes me want to play my own orc lady more. There was more female representation in that cinematic than the Pandaria one. (Which is still one of my very favorites.) But you know... I wasn't counting the women until I started seeing people talk about it. I wasn't thinking sexism at all.

     And you know. I'm still not bothered by it. There are plenty of things in this game that are sexist and bother me occasionally. Sadly often as not it's the players rather than the game itself. (though that's an entry for another day.) But there are a few in-game things too. Bikini plate that's full armor when on a male character for one thing. Personally I've always wished that there was a little check-box or something for skimpy or not skimpy armor. And that you could check it on either gender and just have your armor show that way. If people can have female characters running around in skimpy plate, well then, that should be an option for male characters too. Thanks to transmog the skimpy armor thing is less of an issue. My female characters aren't going to get stuck running around in skimpy gear because I can just fix it, but knowing the disparity is there still bothers me sometimes. 

     Honestly that bothers me a lot more than whether or not there is a woman's picture in that big list of major lore characters up on the site right now. There will be awesome female NPCs in game. There always are. I just love Shokia when questing Horde side in Pandaria. And I know there will be more like her. I don't need major lore characters to make me feel empowered as a woman. But then I also play mostly male characters. What I enjoy are strong characters, gender of those characters is less important to me than the character's personality and how they are portrayed. And sadly I feel like sometimes the major female characters in the game end up being portrayed poorly when compared to minor characters like Shokia.

     Jaina, for example. I haven't read the books and I'll admit I'm coming at this with a little bit of Horde Bias, but even when playing through the 5.1 quests Ally side she came across as kind of insane to me. I felt really uncomfortable with her complete about face with regards to the Sunreavers and the actions Tyl took as a character while doing her quests... I didn't feel would have entirely settled well with him, because of how it came across. And I think part of that is just poor handling of the character. I don't really get to understand what's going on with her, I just see the little bits of her I read in the quests and maybe that doesn't do her justice.

     Aggra kind of annoyed me in Cataclysm too. And again, I feel like that was just a sort of poor portrayal of what she was intended to be. Zaela was awesome in her bit part but sometimes I feel like the more 'screen time' the major females get the worse it goes for their character. That said. I do still wish Aggra was going with us to Draenor, baby or not. I'd like to see there be another chance for her character to be handled in a way that would make me really like her. Besides, after what I went through with her to get Thrall back it doesn't seem like she'd just happily step aside to let him leave without her.

     I still won't be counting the female characters. I still won't be upset when the male ones likely outnumber them. It would be silly of me to get upset over something that's reflected in my own character roster of level 90s (even if part of the reason for that comes down to the way the female PCs are designed in game). What I will be hoping for is quality over quantity. If I could see one female character of the caliber of Zoe from Firefly? That'd be worth ten 'major' female NPCs in needlessly skimpy armor making poor decisions that don't feel properly justified by what I can see in game.

     These are just my opinions. I don't pretend they're right and even if the numbers game doesn't particularly bother me, that doesn't mean I'm saying it isn't a problem or that others are wrong for being bothered about it. There's plenty of sexism in video games. This one is sadly no exception. I'm certainly not ready to write off the new expansion based on the very slim materials we're seeing this early in the game. I'm still very excited. And I am still hopeful that as the expansion draws much closer we'll be seeing a lot more that improves on the way this looks.

What's in your bags?

Day 15: In my pocket/purse

Since there are no cellphones in game and I didn't want to just screenshot the clutter that is my bags I started to think about what my characters actually keep in their bags. And here's some of the stuff Tai keeps in his. A ridiculous amount of food. (It looks like his friend Bohao packed his bags. 'You don't eat enough, Tai. You are too skinny.') And a seemingly neverending supply of alcohol. (Other monks can use mana tea to restore their energy. Tai's mana 'tea' is alcohol.) Oh and his guild tabard. That was in there too, so he's wearing it now.

Day 14

Day 14: Eating

Mother wolf and cubs eating a goat. I really love some of the scenery in Pandaria, and little details like this wolf family and their dinner.

Warlords of Draenor

Day 13: Part of Me

This is one of my older WoW characters. She's based (very loosely) on one of my oldest RP characters, and the little direhorn is my little one's favorite in game pet so its name is one of her nicknames. And I love Night Elves. If they had paladins... I might not play horde so much. Was hard for me to pick something for this screenshot, but I feel like this works.

     And belatedly I'm posting a few thoughts on the new expansion. My first viewing of the trailer just let me going: What?! But also: Wow! I'll freely admit I've watched it several times since then and devoured a bunch of information so I now feel like I've got a fairly good idea of what is known about it so far. And though at first I really wasn't sure what/how to feel about it, now I'm getting kind of excited. Even though time travel is seriously one of my least favorite story themes ever. Seriously, I hate it. I've purposely not read several books that I am told are quite good simply because someone told me they're about time travel. I'll admit I've seen it done well but it always kind of bugs me.
     And yet... I'm still super excited for the new expansion. What we have seen of Draenor so far looks gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. Shadowmoon Valley seems like it's going to make me very glad I've got Alliance Alts so they can play in it. And Frostfire Ridge looks like it might be one of those mountainous snowy zones I always seem to fall in love with. Storm Peaks and Kun Lai summit are some of my very favorites. And really there isn't a zone I'm not excited to see. The storyline seems like it's be as much Alternate Universe as Time Travel so that should be interesting as well.
     Garrisons sound like an amazing concept. They were one of the things that when I first saw in the trailer I just went 'What?!' Then I read a thing. And then I was super excited. Seish can't wait to be Lord Commander of a Garrison. He's already named it. The rest of them aren't quite that enthusiastic but it's exciting. I have a sneaking hope that Tyl's Garrison will look like my Night Elf bases in Warcraft III (which I am terrible at, but husband and I used to play anyway. We'd team up vs the computer and then he'd spend the campaign rescuing me from the AI)
      New character models! I'm hoping maybe Tyl can finally have eyebrows even though he doesn't have a beard! And that Gawaine will have a less stupid looking face! And now I want to free up characters slots for a dwarf... and a draenei paladin.I'm incredibly excited... and a little nervous for the new models. Can't wait to see what they'll actually look like.
     There are a ton of storage and UI improvements I'm excited over. Actually account wide heirlooms means I might have to start actually buying some again to make stuff easier on the alts. I had mostly played on Seish's server originally, but I've got Alliance alts on other servers and am slowly building up some alts on Tai's server because it's PVE instead. So it will be nice to actually give them heirlooms.
     I'm already seriously thinking about what I'll do with a free level 90. Level one of the alts? Make the draenei paladin I suddenly really want? I'll probably make up my mind and change it a million times before we even know when the expansion's actually coming. Past history makes me much more inclined with putting it on a class I actually have some idea how to play simply so I won't end up needing to level another alt to figure out how to play the character.
     And now I'm starting to seriously think about the things I really want to accomplish before this expansion 'ends'. I'm going to be a little sad to see it go. I really love Pandaria, and I've enjoyed a lot of the story. (Yay, Lor'themar!) And before my guys start shipping out for new adventures there are some things I feel like I really need to do.
-Seish is going to get that Legendary cloak, somehow... even if it takes him 7 more weeks to get the Secrets (which at one a week it's looking to do.)
-Rothorin's going to hit level 90. (72 so far)
-Laen's going to hit level 90. (47 so far)
-If I manage Rothorin and Laen to 90 Tiuli is next.
     There are a lot more things I'd like to do, but most of them will probably not happen, like doing Siege on Flex difficulty, or even getting to try out a challenge mode dungeon. But if I can meet the goals I've set I'll be mostly happy... and super excited to see the new content. So bring it on! (but not too soon. I still have stuff to finish.)

Day 12 Screenshot

Day 12: Clouds

Throne of the Four Winds. Uldum has such pretty clouds.

The Inevitable Paladin Shop Talk

     Today on one of his dungeon runs Laen hit level 45. I've been kind of excited for this because I've been debating with myself for a while which of the level 45 talents I was going to pick for Holy spec. I'd ruled out Sacred Shield pretty early on. It's the talent Rim has for level 45 and I try to keep it up on him for extra mitigation as a tank, but for a healer it just didn't seem very exciting to me. But that still left me two choices I was pretty torn between.
     Seish has Selfless Healer. I don't know whether or not that's an odd talent pic for a ret pally. Divi uses Sacred Shield, but I picked Selfless Healer on Seish originally because he quests to level with SprYte's warrior Roz and it gave Seish one more button to keep his warrior companion alive with. Then I got to max level and realized just how awesome it was for soloing stuff. It's not quite as super a heal as a self heal, but that free, instant surge of health has saved Seish's life more times than I can count. It's also saved the occasional tank on the Horseman when the healer forgot to heal, or hapless person in LFR when I happened to notice it was up in between smashing face. Still I think Seish has ended up using it more on himself than anyone else. So in his case maybe it should be called Selfish Healer.
     I seriously considered Selfless Healer for Laen. Thought it might be kind of fun, and useful, and I may still talent into it at some point to try it out. But for his current leveling purposes I finally went with Eternal Flame. Putting a HoT on the tank occasionally sounds nice, and it'll give me a chance to try it out in the field. I've got a good idea of how Selfless Healer works already, at least on a ret paladin, but I haven't really tried Eternal Flame. So we'll see.

     Halfway through the talent tree. 45 more levels to go. He's slowly catching up to my Alliance Paladin. I promise not to blog every talent choice he makes, but this one was one I'd been looking forward to. I'm excited about this. Thanks to Tai giving me some much needed healer confidence I'm thoroughly enjoying my little holy paladin. He still doesn't feel quite as awesome as a Mistweaver, but I do like the fact that when things inevitably decide to hit Laen because he's the healer he's got plate and a shield between him and going squish. And Pursuit of Justice is almost as good for keeping up with super fast tanks as roll.

Screenshot Days 10-11

Day 10: Book

I seem to keep coming back to the Inscription shop in Dalaran for these but... just look at these books. They look so neat :D

Day 11: A memory

This one seemed like it just about had to be an old screenshot rather than a new one. Going through my screenshot folders there were so many I almost picked so many shots full of guildies. And some of them don't play any more. In the end though I couldn't resist going with one of my favorite shots. Thera (my rogue) and Divi (my friend's paladin) watch Thrall's proposal back in Cata. I think they look like they're having a conversation about it. Divi had just helped Thera with the quest for the epic cape, which she'd never have been able to finish by herself because I am bad at rogues. But you know with a tauren prot paladin in tow Thera didn't have so much trouble. "And he's so beefy! <3" Was Thera's commentary when teased by guildies about her 'new squeeze'. There was an entire joking, half in-character RP conversation in guild chat. And that particular comment is now sort of an inside joke.

     And the crazy silly things that used to happen when my guild was bigger and more full of people were one of the things that really made me fall in love with the game. There are a lot of other things I love. I love the world, I love my characters, I love that I don't lose hours of xp and maybe entire levels when I die a lot (Everquest, I am looking at you.) I love the new friends I've made since then. But it's that guild and my awesome, crazy friends that got me into WoW and made me love it. Thanks, guys!

Day 9

Day 9: Mine

There are many Netherwing Drakes but this one is mine. Also it's outside a mine.

     Been doing some leveling on Rothorin. Have managed to get the mats to get his engineering and mining caught up to Northrend now and questing has so far taken him from 68 to 71 in very little time. The monk buff with rested xp and a couple of heirlooms adds up to a really nice bonus. And questing on a tank is as much fun as I remember.

     Especially when there are quests to do I've never done with lore and story. I really enjoyed this quest where Rothorin borrowed Thassarian's horse. Really wish there were actual horse mounts sized like this so male nelfs could look this awesome riding their own horses. Tyl and Rothorin's horses all look just a bit too small for them.

Sky Golem!!

Day 8: Someone I miss.

Seish contemplating people he misses. Me missing a lot of the people I used to play with that don't play any more. And there's a reason the cat's there too. This was a hard thing to figure out how to screenshot.

     On a lighter note Khaelyss made his second Sky Golem today!! And it is mine! That puts Seish at 180 mounts. (He has more than any of my other characters because he's a paladin who has done the Argent Tournament.) Tried it out a bunch today. Khaelyss took it for a test drive.

 

      Then Tyl used it to go and pick a bunch of herbs. It's really a very ugly mount, but I like it anyway. Next Khaelyss gets to start work on making the pets. He's going to be a very busy engineer.
     I decided to help husband's death knight with a run of Shado-Pan Monastery. He ended up coming in in the very middle of a really bad group last night, so when I asked if there was anything he wanted to do in game this evening he asked if Tyl could help run him through there.

     The littlest death knight survived better with no heals but the spirit beast than she had with the group the night before... so apparently it was a pretty bad one. And I can't stop giggling over the fact that his death knight is smaller than Snowthorn.

     And there was stuff! Trailers for the new expansion, bunches of information on the website! But I'm still too busy processing it to have anything at all eloquent to say. In a few days that'll probably change, but at the moment I'm still stuck at: wow.

How I Mog

Day 7: Yes!

It took me so long to figure out what to do for this screenshot. Nothing super exciting happened for me today so I went with a shot of Tai on the Twilight Drake. I'd wanted this mount for quite a while so it was exciting when finally at level 90 we could get a small group together to run for them until everybody had them. I was so happy when I finally got mine.

A gigantic ramble about transmog.

      Reading this post by the Godmother had me starting to make a comment and then realizing it was going to be long enough that I really might as well just make a post of my own. My thoughts are less about cosplay and more about mogs, but some of the thoughts are similar. If you've been reading this blog by now you've probably noticed I play mostly male characters, despite being a female in real life. There are several reasons for this, probably enough of them for an entire other blog post if I ever feel inclined to write it, but one of them is that I do not like when bits of my character's armor fall off for no apparent reason, leaving them mostly naked. This seems to happen a lot less to male characters.

     I don't like plate bikinis. They bother me a lot! They bother me even more because if I put that same exact piece of gear on a male character it magically transforms into actual armor. That said, I know a lot of people love them, and I have seen people mix and match some of the few sets in the game with some really creative things and make just amazing looking sets! I don't begrudge them that. In fact I'll take a second to be impressed when I see a particularly unique take on one. That said: I can't see myself ever mogging a character into one. For one thing... that would be so uncomfortable. Can't really imagine plate armor being  comfortable to begin with... but that? Ow.

     I like my characters to look like they are outfitted to do their job. I also like them to look neat. So I do love transmog! Most of the characters I play have a mog outfit designed for them, a lot of them a long time before they'll have leveled enough to equip or acquire it. And not only does it have to be something I like, something that looks practical for their job, it also has to fit the character. I'm a long time D&Der and a fiction writer and an RPer, so all of my characters have at least some developed personality and backstory, quite often before I ever even sit down at the character creation screen. None of my characters are mogged into anything I can't picture them being willing to put on.

     My paladins are in nice sturdy plate, pretty completely practical. (Except the circlet helms. I fudge on that and I freely admit it because I like seeing what they look like.) I've already done a full mog post for Seish  here. And Rim looks like this: 

     Both things I can picture them actually wearing. Rim's armor is really shiny, but then it's also his job to get the monster's attention so looking like a beacon probably helps. And up until Laen I had a raging hatred of 'plate dresses' but Laen insists that he likes them and is a blacksmith and can make it function, so I guess I'll have at least one paladin who runs around in metal skirts.

     Tai's another character I'm quirky about with mogs. He always has an eyepatch, because he only has one eye. I kind of wish that this was an option on the character creation screen so he could actually wear other helms and still have his eyepatch but since it's not I always mog him with one. He's had one since I could acquire one and it's the one piece of his gear I kept transmogged the entire time I was leveling him. (Yes, I'm ridiculous. But he doesn't look like Tai to me without the patch.) 

     This is the second set I've put together for him, but like the first it's something that I can picture him wearing, though this one would be only for when he's trying to be 'fancy'. Tai never wears leather skirts, not because skirts are girly, but because they bother the heck out of me for monks. They might be all well and good for caster druids, but leather is heavy! How is he supposed to kick in a leather skirt? His cloak is never displayed for the same reason. It just seems like it would tangle in his feet and get in the way. 

     When it comes to female characters I like them to have practical gear for their jobs too. Thera shows a little arm and her face and I think still looks very sexy. But then it's hard not to when you're a female blood elf. My night elf huntress wears a nice protective set of mail that I'm really happy with the looks of and that I can see her being very happy to wear. 

      I guess there's not really much point to this post except to talk a little bit about why I mog the way I do. For me it's partly a character driven exercise. But then I guess mogging is as individual a choice as character class and spec. (And I still don't like plate bikinis any more than I like playing rogues.) This is just how and why I mog. How about you?

Getting Distracted

Day 6: Music (For Tycertank's Screenshot a Day)

The organ in Karazhan.  Which has a lot of detail I'd never taken the time to walk over and look at. Thera stealthed in for a screenshot and nobody even had to die (except that one valet who got nosy. We won't talk about that.)

    I'm really good at distracting myself in game. I tend to have goals and sometimes I focus on them pretty well and I usually get to them. Just once in a while I find myself switching them around or going at them in roundabout ways that sort of make me shake my head at myself. I've got a lot of alts I want to level right now. Laen's a pretty high priority, I'm really enjoying paladin healing and I'm not going to lie, the idea of getting him to 90 and mogging him all up is part of the appeal.
     But lately my husband has taken up tanking! (This is the guy who mains a mage.) On a Death Knight! On Alliance Side! And she's getting pretty close to 90 and he keeps asking me what we're going to do when he gets her to 90. Well on Alliance side all I've got is Tyl.  And they can run around together, but then I decided, wouldn't it be nice if I could offer more than just dps Ally side? Then if the Old Ladies Raiding Guild needed something besides another hunter I could help out too. So I've started working on Rothorin again. I'd meant to finish out Outland tanking dungeons to get more of the hang of monk tanking but wasn't feeling it last night so I hammered out the last quests in Netherstorm to hit 68 and then went off to Borean Tundra to do some questing I'd been looking forward to for a while. I've never done the Ally side quests in the Tundra so whee I'm off exploring and reading all the quest text... and remembering yet again just why it's so much fun to quest on a tank.
     Still leveling Laen, still working on Seish's cloak (Secrets of the Empire, I hate you!) But now also leveling Rothorin again. He was supposed to be my first level 90 monk. Maybe he'll be my second?

Collections

Day 5: I collect...

Mounts! They are hands down my favorite in game thing to collect. So this is Seish on the Onyxian Drake.

     I also like collecting pets and doing pet battles. Leveled two more pets to 25 today and managed to get this:

     I think I'd have had it much sooner except somehow I entirely overlooked leveling a critter until now. Slowly pushing my way to having 30 pets for the Celestial Tournament. Though I should probably start being a bit pickier about just which pets I level rather than just doing it on a whim.
     Speaking of whims Fal went to the Darkmoon Faire today to do his tailoring weekly, and on a whim decided to do the pet battle daily. And this happened:

     I was super excited, and because I was so original, it has been named Sauron. Fal still thinks Fireball the cinder kitten is a better pet.

Screenshot Day 4

Day 4: Table

I wanted creepy tables. So I went to Scholomance. I think that rat's hoping Seish has food.

Screenshot Day 3

Day 3: P is for...

Paladin, of course. And it's Rim, because he's the golden one.

Screenshots... and random stuff.

Day 2: I did this today

Healed Dire Maul on Laen.

     It wasn't the only thing I did today.
-Tal ran an LFR in hope of transmog gear. Yep, you heard that right. For transmog gear. I'm a terrible person.
-Rim, Aug, Tai, and Khaelyss did their farming and daily cooldowns.
-Tyl tried an LFR for a new weapon and when that didn't work went to the Timeless Isle and ground out the last few coins to buy himself one.
-Khaelyss mined a ton of thorium.
-Laen turned the thorium into bracers and then dusts and shiny shards.
   
     It was a lazy sort of day and so I was busy on WoW. Which was nice because I accomplished bunch of little random things for characters, but nothing big and impressive like I might have hoped. Tomorrow I'm hoping to finally take Seish in to do the final wing of SoO LFR, and then probably squeeze in a few more runs of ToT for those Secrets of the Empire that just won't seem to drop at all now. I've managed to get a lot less drops since they instituted the catch up mechanism than I did before, which feels very frustrating. But maybe next run. Luck's bound to change at some point.

Screenshots and Character Progress.

     First of all, Tycertank's doing it again: November Screenshot of the Day. And I did have loads of fun with it in September so I think I'll do it again.
Day 1: Fruit

The table in Tai's farmhouse has a cute little fruit bowl on it. (And some other pretty neat stuff)

     And I've been busy around here. Tuesday Laen did enough dungeons to hit level 40. I didn't manage to screenshot the achievement when it actually popped because it was in the middle of a gigantic and very chaotic pull.

     That run he had possibly one of the worst tanks I've ever had the privilege of dealing with. Mini rant incoming: The tank was a warrior and he didn't really pull exactly, he just kind of ran through the instance with a train of mobs behind him. Any time his health dropped and Laen healed him several of the mobs would peel off and come after Laen. The tank never slowed down, far as I could tell he never taunted or anything. Finally in the first room of that particular run of Dire Maul (Warpwood Quarter, I think) The entire room was aggroed, half of them were on Laen, a quarter of them were on the dps, there was freezing and interrupting of casting and then there was a wipe. I asked if we could slow down a little, told the tank I kept getting aggro from things and they were eating Laen and slowing him down so I couldn't keep up. Tank told me I had bubbles for that.
     I did not tell him that he had enraged regeneration and he could use it since I couldn't be bothered to do the job I had queued for either, but I was sorely tempted. I did start using the bubble every time it was off cooldown/forbearance and managed to heal through the rest of the instance despite aggro being everywhere, but if every tank I had had been like that I don't think I'd ever heal anything again. Still Laen's doing well, I'm enjoying playing him for the most part and he can finally start equipping bits and pieces of plate which I'm very excited over.

   
     Wednesday night Tal hit 90! That makes 9 level 90s for me. (Though only 7 different classes.)

     He was item level 435 when he hit 90. Then he hearthed back to the shrine, walked to the bank and two minutes later he was item level 480. It's nice being the spoiled alt with a bank full of gear just waiting for you. I love the look of the Timeless Isle gear on him and will probably keep it for his transmog, unless I can get the red recolor of this same set which I like better.

     The stylish archaeology umbrella completes the look nicely, I think. At least I love it. Tal feels a lot squishier and less effective at 90 than he did on his way up, but I think that's largely because he still needs to pester Seish for gems and then pay a visit to the reforger, once I look up which stats he needs to focus on. I probably also need to get better at warlocking. Still now he can fly to finish maxing out his herbalism research and maybe even get a farm started to grow his own flowers on. He'll like that.