Sunday, December 28, 2014

A little rant about barns.

     Cheerful holiday posts will have to come later, there is a cranky rant here that's been building for a while.
     Tai's a leatherworker. It's a good profession for a monk even if it's always been a pain to level. This expansion's no exception. People who work with metal get a mine for them and all their alts, so the ore just flows in. People who work with herbs have to level some but they get their herb garden to do the same. If you work with leather, though you get to use up one of your building slots to make a barn. So it already annoys me that it took up a slot I wanted for an inn for materials other people get provided for free.
     But I'll deal with that. I'll deal with the finicky traps and the fact that for some reason I couldn't seem to actually catch anything that would provide me with the leather I made the barn for until I got to Nagrand (around level 98). Finally got the barn producing leather and leveled it to three for the adorable pet but also for the chance of being able to farm up savage blood. But elites are no picnic for a healer who isn't that well-geared. Still Tai's usually got a tank to help him out and we split the savage blood.
     But sometimes I feel bad asking for help for something that's basically busy work for my garrison and I go out and work on them alone. It takes a fair bit for Tai to beat one of those Clefthooves down low enough to trap them. And here's the part that makes me angry. I can deal with it being a project and taking me about five minutes per trap. What I can't deal with is that Blizzard set up the mob tagging for those elites in a way that allows someone to come along just as I get them down low enough and drop a trap and taunt. The clefthoof goes in their trap and I've just wasted all the time I spent working on it.
     There's the variation on this where someone just comes along and nukes the mob down to zero before the trap catches too. Either way I spend a fair bit of time and get nothing out of it but annoyance and frustration. Especially when I go back to my garrison with my meager trap haul and walk by the mine and herb garden that produce so much free ore and herbs for friends and alts. I can't help feeling like other people get free materials and I get to use a building slot for another way for people to grief me.
     I think the barn shouldn't have taken a building slot. But it does provide the chance of savage blood so maybe that's fair. But maybe we could at least change the rules for those traps so that they won't work on things not tagged by you or your party members? That still lets people work together, but maybe at least stops me from wishing those big traps worked on other players. And hey then the guy that nukes it down before the trap catches can still get in his daily dose of being a jerk too. But at least I don't have to be filling up barns for the Alliance at no charge.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Shadowmoon Hunter Mog

     Another game of 'What do I have in my void storage?' ended with this mog for Tyl. I really like it. Think it may be one of my new favorite transmogs for him.

Head: Steadfast Coronet
Shoulders: Spaulders of Meditative Focus
Chest: Ranger General's Chestguard
Hands: Purging Handguards
Waist: Cord of Dragon Sinew
Legs: Void Reaver Greaves
Feet: Moonchain Boots
Back: Fen-Yu, Fury of Xuen
Bow: Ironfeather Longbow

     I really just couldn't resist making a mog for those shoulders because they look good on a male Night Elf. And I was happy for a mog that finally worked with that bow. Shadowmoon Valley is an irresistible backdrop for screenshots too. It looks very right for a Night Elf home far away from home.

Friday, December 12, 2014

A couple goals met.

     First of all I have to say I'm with Tome here. I've been slacking off on writing on my WoW blog not because I don't have anything to write about but because I've been too busy doing it to write about it. Warlords is keeping me busy. (And of course there's the holidays too.) I'm running three level 3 garrisons now: Tai's, Rim's, and Ailuuya's.  And a couple level twos that are mostly doing profession stuff and accumulating resources.
     I'm trying to get Ailuuya geared so she can raid because I miss running with my raid team so much. She's close. I'm really hoping for next week. She'll have another crafted piece tomorrow and hopefully I can get her through a heroic or two and maybe the LFR. Today, though, besides her apexis daily and garrison missions she's managed to meet two of my WoW goals.
     I love talbuks. They're still some of my favorite mounts, no matter how many new models they bring in and I wanted the dark ones for ages. But getting them involved pvp and even though a lot of mine are on a pvp server... no. Just no. But a while back Ailuuya got some of the battle tokens from a garrison mission. I put them in her bags thinking I'd have to hope more missions came up for them and save them. But today I finally looked them up and realized she already had enough for the Dark War Talbuk. And there he is. I'll still have to hope the mission comes up again so I can get the other one but I'm so happy about this!
     And after Halaa had been claimed and the Talbuk purchased I thought while I was in Outlands I might as well fly over and pay Gruul another fruitless visit. Ever since I created Ailuuya I had one specific shield in mind for her. The most draenei of shields, but Gruul kept dropping trinkets for me instead. Only tonight he didn't.
     So of course I had to go transmog her even though I'm hoping to replace some of that gear tomorrow or the next day. And I'm happy. I think she looks great, and my many Gruul kills finally paid off so I don't have to do it any more.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

A strange feeling and some achievements.

     Periodically I waste time on my phone looking at funny pictures on the internet. It's amusing, some of them make me laugh, other's make me shake my head. Yesterday one of them made me double take. It was a WoW thing, a split picture top and bottom comparing Vanilla and WoD. I read through all the little captions on the top one and then looked down at the bottom picture and stared thinking... Holy crap that looks like Tai. Staring at it a moment longer I realized it -was- Tai:

At the site
     I am still not sure how to feel about this. After all nobody asked me if they could use my screenshot. And the point seems to be about how isolated WoW is now, when that screenshot was in a post where I was talking about my launch party and playing with friends. After all Tai never levels solo, even if I screencap him that way a lot. On the other hand I guess it's flattering? Except the part where I wasn't credited of course.

     In other notes. I've got three at 100 now, Rim and Tai Horde side and Ailuuya on Alliance. Ailuuya is profiting from the things I learned making garrison missteps on Rim and Tai so she's doing fairly well for herself. Gearing is slowly happening and I've managed to get her silver proving grounds for both healing and damage without too much trouble. She hasn't queued for Molten Core yet, but she'll be able to whenever I want.
     Tai has a stable in his garrison. I'd originally meant to do all that with Seish but he's still at 91 waiting for his leveling partner so Tai has taken over. All but one of the stable mounts have been tamed as of today, including this fine fellow.
    That put Tai's mount count for the achievement at 197, so just on a hunch I switched over to Seish.
And as I'd thought paladin mounts did it (Helps that he has the Argent Charger). I was too excited to screencap the achievement when it popped but it's maybe more impressive this way anyhow:
201/250 for the next one.

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

New Blood Elves and Level 100 (a while ago)

     I'd been watching for it, but before I thought to check yesterday morning a friend who knows me very well excitedly told me to go look. Sure enough, a preview for the new Blood Elf models: Blood Elf Artcraft. I've been waiting more than a little uneasily for them. Looking at the still pictures has me a bit more optimistic, but only cautiously so. I liked the stills for a lot of things that I've been less impressed with when I see them live. And the previews are limited to one face and a few hairstyles so I really have no idea how mine will look. I'm afraid they'll get a really silly run like the male night elves. But the stills look good. It doesn't seem like they gave them the flat, dead, bulgy eyes that ruined my enjoyment of my lady draenei. So I'm hoping that when I see them live I'll love them as much as I love the current models.
I went afk for something and when I came back I found that Tai had taken a seat and settled in to discuss garrison matters with Rokhan,
      In other news Tai did manage to hit level 100 last Saturday. That night he tried the proving grounds and I was pleasantly surprised that it only took three tries to get silver despite the fact that for that he has to heal in serpent stance when in the field with Os he's played almost entirely in Spirited Crane.
     So of course the next day the first thing we decided to do was go make an attempt at two-manning a dungeon. Looking to see what we should try we found out our brand new 90 gear only made us barely eligible to queue for normal Skyreach if we had been going to queue. that seemed a pretty good indication that it would be the best place to start.
     It was our first time setting foot into any of the dungeons this expansion, so we had no idea what to expect. Skyreach is a pretty dungeon I'd have nabbed more screenshots but only had time for this one when Os went afk for a moment. The trash wasn't too bad, though rather slow going with only mistweaver and prot pally damage.
     Then we got to the first boss. The sensible thing probably would have been to look at a guide for the strategies or at least crack open a dungeon journal, but we like trial and error. There were lots of errors. An accidental bubble on Os' part got Tai stomped by Ranjit. Moments later an ill timed chi torpedo showed me that no... there is NO invisible wall on that platform after all. We rather thought we wouldn't manage it. I couldn't really help with the dps, the damage was too heavy on our new armor. But somehow after a lot of tries this happened:
     He dropped mail that Tai and Os looked at, shrugged, and DEed. The second boss got one attempt before we decided to leave it for another day. Still it was fun, far more challenging than Mist Heroics we were easily able to complete with roughly the same gear. We'll be going back to try again with a few more pieces of gear.
     It took a few more days of resource gathering but Tai has finally managed to upgrade his garrison to level three and put in a salvage yard, lumber mill and stable. Eventually the mill will be replaced, probably with an inn, but for now it's helping upgrade the rest.
    Ailuuya's almost 97. She's got plenty of resources, thanks to some downtime and to having been smart enough to start with a lumber mill. But I still can't decide what spec to try to gear up, for the moment she's continuing to level in prot.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Leveling all over the place.

     I don't have anybody at 100 yet. I play a lot of my characters with different people, so since the Azerothian flu seems to have been epidemic I've been leveling all sorts of different things. So here's a rundown of what the main ones are up to:
     Since he keeps trying to steal Seish's job it probably shouldn't surprise me that circumstances too have ensured that Tai is my highest level character at the moment. Here are he and Os in Gorgrond, though they've since moved on to Talador and level 97. These two are one of the teams that makes it hard for me when I go on to quest alone on other characters. A prot paladin and a mistweaver monk are a nearly unstoppable team and they tear through quests at an insane rate of speed. (And look awesome doing it, even without new models.)
     Tai's garrison is level two and most of the buildings have been upgraded to two as well. I have to say the barn's a disappointment. I was looking forward to supplementing the skinning he does questing, but turns out that either the iron traps are the glitchiest things ever, or there's some trick to trapping things that actually provide leather. I can catch the wolves that provide cloth/fur and the boars/riverbeasts for meat all day long, But have not managed a single clefthoof. Tai glares at the barn and growls at the workers every time he walks by it.
     Rim's the next highest. He and Syri have reached level 94. His garrison's also level two and he's worked on most of the buildings. They're currently in Gorgrond and ready to move on to Talador. He's not having the issues with building disappointment that Tai is. And apparently Rim's one of my luckiest characters. Not only did he win himself a Garn Nighthowl on one of his first days out questing, but he's managed to get four of his follower to go epic for him. With the right composition he can get them to churn out a ten hour mission in two and a half hours.
     Laen was originally supposed to go solo but the hubby finally ended up using his boost on a Brewmaster, so Laen and a rather cute little Pandaren poked their heads into Frostfire when the queues on Rim and Syri's server were too high. They've reached level 91, though mostly Laen's garrison is serving for loaning his enchanting study to Os in exchange for mats.
     Ailuuya's planning on being my raiding main for WoD but she's still a bit behind, mostly because I'd been so busy playing with others that I've had little chance for playing alone. She's 93, though and has just finished Shadowmoon. And I don't know what spec she'll be. Right now she's leveling in prot and collecting ret gear but has her eye on holy if it's needed. She's versatile. And playing through Shadowmoon with her had started a story in my head that might need to find its way onto paper.
     Tyl's also leveling solo but he's letting Ailuuya have the spotlight for solo play for now. Still he's 92 and has a garrison to take care of.
    Poor Seish has been waiting on his leveling buddy and with the luck I always seem to have with the character I consider my main it looks like he's going to be the last one to get anywhere. He's currently sitting in Frostfire ready to do the quests to start his garrison whenever SprYte gets a chance to log in. There are other 90s waiting in the wings, but there's a pretty long line already.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

First new mount of WoD

     I was so incredibly lucky today. While Rim and Syri were questing in Frostfire Ridge today I saw somebody putting together a group for Nok'Karosh. I knew he drops a mount, but just one mount for the entire raid.  Still Syri was game so we went over to see. Nok'Karosh is level 100 so even a forty man raid of people closer to 90 has a tough time. Rim spent a good deal of the fight dead since he's a tank. But the group got it down, the mount dropped. Everybody rolled, and I won!
     I squealed at my computer, ridiculously happy. And then because karma is important I stuck around for a couple more kills just to help out. Or to help out as much as a shiny gold beacon of light that keeps getting bitten to death does. It's a lovely mount. I like the new wolf models a lot.
     What a fun start to the new expansion. It's not Rim's usual style of mount, but I think they'll get along.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Running Around in Warlords

     The last several days before the expansion were spent getting ready for a Launch Party hosted here at my place. So when the portal opened we had five people sitting here in my living room with WoW open and all ready to go... and a sixth friend on Vent to join in on the fun. The majority voted Alliance for starting so a rather worried looking Ailuuya climbed down from her perch in the shrine to go and see what she could do for the past, or the alternate past as the case may be.
     Unfortunately her part in the night's adventure was short lived. She started the party and got a short way into Tanaan jungle before repeated disconnects kept having the lot of them stuck waiting on me. If I'd been powering through alone I might have kept at it but when other people were waiting I decided to pick someone on a different (and apparently less populated) server to sub in instead. Tyl took Ailuuya's place and though there was lag (oh so very much lag) later, he at least mostly managed to stay connected.
     I'd tried to keep myself as mostly unspoiled as possible so though I'd seen a few screenshots Shadowmoon Valley has me oohing and aaahing and screencapping at every turn. It's just beautiful. I think WoW gets more beautiful with every expansion.

 
     Tyl couldn't resist making a new friend or two, though Snowthorn will never be replaced. But the new hydras are too adorable to pass up. I didn't go tame a hydra when it became available last patch because I was waiting for one of these. It was well worth the wait. Now can we please have them as mounts too? Pretty please?
     Yesterday morning Tai's paladin had some time free so I -finally- got to go see a little of the Horde experience. It was fun. And Frostfire Ridge is beautiful too. And entirely different kind of beauty than Shadowmoon but still definitely beautiful.
     Tai feels right at home in his orcish style outpost, though he's the only one of my Blood Elves who will. He's quite happy, though and wandered around telling goblins what to build in between punching ogres and making friends with the locals.
     He got to meet Draka, briefly, but long enough to be impressed. Tai's got a soft spot for fierce orc women and thinks Thrall's mother's a lovely one. Durotan's a lucky guy.
     Poor Ailuuya's still dealing with queues to try to get on and level so when Tai's paladin needed a break it was Tyl who got to log back in an play. He had a queue too, but 50 is shorter than 1500+. Overall, despite the garrison issues (Tyl spent half an hour sitting on a parked flight path gryphon just inside the border) and the getting booted a few times yesterday I'm really impressed so far. I think the garrisons will be a lot of fun though I don't have any plan for them and am just deciding spur of the moment what to make. And I can't wait to keep leveling and see what the rest of these zones look like.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Quick thoughts on the patch

     Well, he may have to entirely relearn how to do that monk healing thing, but at least he got this sweet bike?

     I've got mixed feelings about the patch, the way I probably would about just about any major patch really, but here's a quick rundown of the good and the bad or at least my perceptions of good and bad.

Good:
-Storage. So much more storage. Between the reagent tab, the toy box and a new tab of void storage Seish is looking at far more bag space than he's had in months and with a bit of juggling around later I can clear even more.

-The Chopper. It's a free mount. It sounds really good. Tai looks like a badass biker riding it. What's to complain about?

-New hunter pets. Went right out with Tyndellan and tamed a stag! He'll get a prettier one later but he needs more levels first. And there are hydras and all sorts of new beasts waiting in Draenor. That's thrilling.



-New things to do. Haven't tried the new 90 UBRS yet, but I've done the horde side quests a couple times (and plan to do them many more.)

Bad:
Ability pruning. Some I'm okay with: Inquisition can stay gone, even if it's hard getting used to not putting it up. But I really miss a lot of the missing abilities. Serpent Sting for Beast Masters, Renew for priests. Guardian for my ret and holy paladins. I feel like they went a little overboard with the weeding in a few cases.

-The new group finder is terrible.

Mixed:
-New models. I love the new trolls, the new orcs, the new male tauren, the dwarves, the male humans. I'm okay with a few of the others. I'm pretty disappointed with the new male night elves and female draenei. And even the ones I like the changes are enough that it'll take some getting used to. Big changes. Tyl had to get a new face because his old okay one became terrible.
At least Snowthorn is still familiar.

-Stat Squish. It needed to happen without a doubt but it's still disconcerting to see numbers change so much and leaves me unable to tell if I'm doing my new rotation wrong now, or if I'm just squished. I have no frame of reference for the numbers. It also doesn't seem like some of the content is tuned quite right any more.

     Overall I think I'm still getting used to it and I've got a lot of getting used to it to do. At least there's a month to adjust.

Friday, October 3, 2014

Some general rambling

     My screenshotting mojo crapped out on me midway through September. My brain took a blogging sabbatical, though partly that's because I've been stewing over a post I want to make. This post is a bit of a catch up in the meantime. I've been playing, doing my raids which are so much fun and a bit with the Old Ladies too. Been playing some of the alts. Saelindir is 84 and Falsyr is level 70 as of today. That's two classes I don't have at 90 that are slowly making their way there.
     It seems Blizzard's made itself another stir: Does anybody read over these first? Which I think honestly bothers me less because of the sort of sexist way it comes across than because how could anybody read that and not think about how it might come across when they've already had people annoyed at them over the same thing several times this year?And about this time I had a very interesting encounter one evening in the Ghostlands.
     Leveling an alt with SprYte that evening just because we both wanted something quiet and relaxing to do.  Someone started chatting up the zone in general chat, saying hi and so I whispered them a hello back, started a little conversation because they seemed friendly enough. Bit of random chatting about RP and characters as SprYte and I leveled and somehow the subject of gender came up. Starting with the person (which intuition pegged as younger and female) telling me they assumed I was a guy(I was playing yet another male blood elf.) I replied with a simple. "You assume incorrectly."
     What followed was the first time I've ever actually had anyone react badly to me playing something other than my real life gender. I'm still a bit flummoxed.  She (I was right) told me that she hated people who played the wrong gender. She thought it was horrible. I was taken aback and asked why, assuming perhaps someone had lied to her in some way with it. But no, when I got an answer it was simply that she assumed everybody who played something other than their real life gender did so for and I quote: "Perverted reasons."
     I've written an entire post on why I prefer male characters for the most part and I don't really consider any of those reasons to be perverted. I don't consider any of my other female friends who play male characters to be perverted or any of my male friends who play female characters for that matter. I don't find people strange for playing only their real life gender either. The entire point of a fantasy game where you make your own character is to make the character that you want. The gender of our avatars is for gameplay purposes a 100% aesthetic choice. It might have other meaning for a player beyond that but as far as the game world is concerned it's all aesthetics. I like the option of playing whatever I want. I don't think I'd want to play a game where I was restricted to playing only my own gender. I like the freedom to make my characters whoever I want them to be.
     So I still can't help feeling taken aback by that hate over something that to me was largely a choice based on preferring that my armor look like armor. Then again I guess there are people who hate others for their choice of race too. Probably two strikes against me in that one because I'm unabashedly fond of my blood elves. I think the real point of this ramble is a question that bugs me every time something like sexism rears it's ugly head. And that is... will we ever as a people get over being stupid about how we treat each other?

*That other post I mentioned is still coming. It's also opinionated.

Monday, September 15, 2014

Too happy for words


     Of all the things I'd wanted to do this expansion that I thought I wouldn't be able to this was one of the biggest. It's my birthday tomorrow, which is kind of irrelevant, because none of the incredibly wonderful people that helped me get the achievement and the growly wolf mount that I desperately wanted knew that. But that makes this all the more awesome for me.
     I cried. And since I'm not actually the big tough male nelf that Tyl is I don't even have to pretend that they were manly tears of joy. And they weren't all because of the achievement and the mount, but mostly because of the people that helped me get it, and who have also been letting me try something that I've always wanted to try in WoW. Raiding.
     So thanks all of you: MattyShaman and Breige for introducing me to the wonderful group to run with in the first place and Hawt and Koor and everybody else in the raid for bringing most of the firepower. All I can really credit myself with was that I was still standing at the end.

September Screenshots

Day 12: Spring/Fall
It's always like a crisp fall day in Eversong

Day 13: Out of Place
One of these things doesn't seem to fit. Aug's not very good at blending with the natives.

Day 14: Healthy
An old screenshot of Tai from when the Vale was healthy.

Day 15: Remember
One of the very first screenshots I ever took. I remember how hard SprYte and I laughed over this debuff that turned Seish into a pocket sized paladin.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Screenshots and Alts... and screenshots of alts.

Day 10: Repetition
There's a lot of it in my alts. Yes this is another Night Elf hunter.

     Three blood elf paladins at 90 and I'll admit to a few more that aren't. I love them. And when it comes time for an alt to raid with and I finally decide on a hunter... after a lot of thought I realize that there just isn't any Alliance side hunter for me but Night Elf. I just like what I like. This is Tyndellan. I designed him first in beta so I am as happy with his new model appearance as I can possibly be. (There's still stuff I really wish could change but I should be able to live with him. Hair may be subject to change, possibly frequently.)
     I still wish he was going to have eyebrows, and that he'd smile once in a while. But aside from his silly beta armor I think he's alright.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Screenshot Spam

Day 6: I need...
More room in void storage.

Day 7: Father
Poor Dezco.

Day 8: Broken
Not just the wall.

Day 9: Orange
Blasted Lands

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Screenshots

Day 4: DIY
 Saelindir makes some of his own clothes. (Then promptly mogs them into almost nothing.)

Day 5: Upside-Down
The drake isn't, but something about seeing it this way is.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Screenshots and Lazy mogging

Day 3: Button
Buttons are apparently not the preferred method for securing clothes in Azeroth. Many NPCs were treated to perhaps creepy scrutiny in the finding of the buttons on this gnome. "NO! Snowthorn! We were looking for buttons, not lunch."

     Last night Tyl was lucky enough to roll himself this new bow from Galakras: Dagryn's Discarded Longbow. Warforged and everything. I was pretty ecstatic. And even though it's sort of ugly and spiky and red I didn't want to mog over it right away. So off to the mogger to see what lazy sort of mog I could come up with to sort of match it with what I had. Variations on a theme:
    I changed two pieces (aside from the bow) of the mog he was wearing before and I think it looks passable. Thanks to the Old Ladies Raiding Guild for these fiery mail shoulders from Firelands that look better on him than I'd expected.
Shoulders: Craterflame Spaulders
Waist: Chief Brigadier Girdle
Incredibly lazy mog complete.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Monday, September 1, 2014

September Screenshot of the Day

Tycertank is doing Screenshot of the Day again! This is probably one of the things I need to ease my tail end of the expansion blogging slump. Besides, they're always fun.

Day 1: In my cup
"Not nearly enough alcohol. Come here, beer dog." 
     I knew this screenshot was probably going to be Tai drinking. He didn't disappoint. Thanks to MattyShaman for the beer dog. It was a survival mog prize that Tai promptly stole.
 
     And on another note I just realized that August 28 marked 1 year for this blog! I can't believe it's been that long. Making this blog was definitely one of my best WoW decisions, so here's to several more years. Tai and I can both drink to that.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

A goal achieved

     I'm proud of this. Not so much because it was hard, though the tanking challenge was a bit challenging as I sorted out how to handle it. I am proud because I stepped way outside of my comfort zone and put myself in the path for blame when things went wrong. Because I didn't let cranky people stop me from doing something that I really do enjoy. This was harder in some ways than Seish's even though with his I got road blocked on sorting out the challenge for a few weeks. Seish's was only hard for a while at the end. Rim's was hard every time I queued up for something I hadn't done before. But it's done. And I think... unless obsession tackles me or somebody wants company while working on one of their own... that this is the last one.
     I've finished four. Three for the blood elf paladins: melee dps, healing, and tanking, and one for Tyl. I haven't done the caster cape, but Warlords is looming closer and I don't know if I'll start another. I have done all four challenges.  And I'm very proud of my shiny tanking wings. And I'm sure I"ll tank a few more things at least, not just to try them out, but because I do like being a tank.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

New Models in Beta

     There was no artcraft, but the new Night Elf male models slipped into the Beta and when Kamalia was nice enough to let me know about it I popped right over to have a look. I'm a little disappointed. I don't think it's quite as bad as Ailuuya but it was still a bit of a relief to log back into Tyl in live and see him the way I'm used to him looking. I am not happy with the face he ended up with. There was another in Character Creation I'd have picked instead if I were given the option now. Rothorin's wasn't quite as bad because he's got a beard and it helps some but... poor Tyl. And he -still- doesn't have eyebrows! They didn't fix the clean-shaven Night Elf male's lack of eyebrows like I was desperately hoping they would. And while I can understand that there are probably those who prefer it that way... I really feel like there should be an option for all the faces with regards to those eyebrows.
     Here's Tyl's current look.
     And here he is in Beta. I think I could maybe get used to it, but I feel like Tyl at least may require the spending of cash for a face I like slightly better, since I really am not sure we'll get those free recustomizations. None of the faces available are perfect for him, maybe it would have been too drastic a change but I'd have liked to see at least one male night elf face that didn't look angry/miserable.
     Here's current Rothorin
     And in Beta. I feel like the new faces are angrier than the old ones somehow.

     On a more positive note the new human males are also in the Beta and I don't have much negative to say about those. After all, comparing this Gawaine:
     (My poor untransmogged little leveling paladin.) to this Gawaine:
     It's not in the least hard to see which is better. I'm perfectly happy about this as Gawaine's new face. If I had any complaint at all about the new male humans it would just be that their mouths open frighteningly wide with a few of the animations.
     Other than that the male humans are perfect and I definitely can't wait to do a bit more with mine. The male Night Elves... I am not so sure about. Maybe I'll be happier if I can get Tyl a new face.