Hello again

Ugh, holidays. Once upon a time, I actually enjoyed them. Now it seems like it's just another thing to stress me out. (And make my job even crazier.) And I swear, if I hear one single Christmas carol before Thanksgiving is over, I will punch something.  -_-

On a somewhat more cheerful note, Star Wars is still going well, even with my unexpected spells of altitis. Khrysi is 47, and is currently going through the Voss bonus series before heading to Correlia. I've been missing Qurana pretty bad lately, so she'll probably be the next one I focus on. Drax'o and Xadarr have been poking me for attention, too. And Jhorren finally finished chapter 2 of his story.

(Here, have some screenshot spam)

Drax'o has been getting a little spoiled, gear-wise. >.>   I happened upon the Minimalist Gladiator's armor for very cheap in the GTN, and just couldn't resist. I've been collecting the Cassus Fett set as well, and right now the chest piece is the last thing I need. He's probably going to keep using the Gladiator's most of the time though. Because seriously, just look at him. (Mako certainly is...)

And speaking of Qurana.... I may not have been playing her much, but she has been getting a bunch of companion gifts from Khrysi, and as a result, her and Vector are 'Official' now.

there were many *squees* happening during this.

The agent/Vector romance gives me so many warm-fuzzy feelings, I just don't even..... *sigh*

Khrysi and Iresso have been *cough* getting to know each other better, as well. Which is kind of funny, because she has never seemed interested in that sort of thing before. She even turned Theran's offer down, and didn't really do much, if any, flirting with Iresso before the first romance conversation came up. I'm not sure if she's going to go with the marriage proposal or not, when it happens. Right now I'm thinking she'll turn it down (but still keep the relationship), but I'll have to wait and see what "vibes" (for lack of a better word) she's giving me when the time comes.

..... I've kind of been spending a lot of time thinking about my characters, alright? Don't judge. >.>

Also, sis went and got Guild Wars 2, (hooray for awesome sales!) and let me make a couple characters to tinker with. My sylvari elementalist hasn't done much yet, but my char ranger has been a blast.

Meet Daunclaw (and Fang)

She's level 7 and has been mostly just exploring and killing random things to get as many weapon skills as possible. It's been a fun, relaxing distraction so far, and I can't wait til I can finally get a better computer and get my own copy of the game. Sis also said something about getting a month's time of Final Fantasy 14 soon-ish, so hopefully I will get to play with Kero and Jorren again, too.

Well, I think that's enough for now. You know, I might maybe make a  few character posts sometime, just to show off the piles of screenshots I've been taking, and to get a few things about each of them out of my head and written down. We'll have to see how much work and stuff distracts me from actually doing it. :P
/Waves

So, um, hi

I've been kind of busy lately, between work and keeping myself distracted with gaming, and time just sort of got away from me. And, well, I won't say anything about being 'back' because it's likely to continue. Personal stuff has been making it hard to really want to write about anything, and honestly, I've just been bouncing between games, leveling baby alts most of the time, which is just not really that interesting. And it's not like a lot of people are reading this blog anyways.



Most of my game time has been on Rift. I reactivated my account and got the new Storm Legion expansion with my tax return, and it's been fun. Way more fun than WoW, I have to admit. I feel like a traitor saying that, but it's true. Blizzard has been making so many changes to everything, especially the classes, that it seems like there's no real challenges any more. On the other hand, Rift's class system hasn't changed much, other than each calling getting a new soul with the expansion. Another difference is the factions. While WoW has been pushing the Horde/Alliance war harder with each patch, the line between factions in Rift has almost disappeared. Defiants and Guardians share chat channels, and can even be in the same guild, and there's a new(ish) "mercenary" option for the warfronts, where a character can be switched to the opposing team when one side has a shortage of players. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of PvP, and while I do battlegrounds in WoW once in a while, it more out of boredom than any desire to smash the other factions faces. So the faction mixing in Rift has been a nice change.

Rift has also added player housing, called dimensions, in the expansion, and it's been a blast. There are so many different areas, and everything is completely free-placement, so anyone can build whatever they want, wherever they want it. And make it all public so other players can come admire their handiwork. I've spent almost as much time checking out other players' and guilds' dimensions than I've spent building my own. The only problem has been that it can get to be rather expensive to acquire some of the furniture and stuff. But that's mostly just a problem for lowbie characters. Since rogue-Kelesaria has hit level 50, money has been a much smaller problem, on my main server at least.

It only took until the first expansion to reach the old level cap...

a rather poor view of Vanyell's current home

Besides Rift, I still do log on WoW once in a while. I have discovered something, while running around with my PvP-obsessed brother (cross-realm grouping with friends has been the only really good thing Blizz has done recently). I've discovered that battleground healing is not only rather fun, I'm actually sort of good at it. Definitely not great, but at least mostly competent. And pet battles are still fun in smaller doses. And I'm trying to make myself level a few more characters, even if there's almost no chance of getting them geared up at all, thanks to the rep-gating for all the valor gear. Jahira actually got most of level 87 through healing BGs with my brother's shaman, and my warlock Rynia has had a few tries along with his feral druid. Unfortunately, I'm sort of a fail 'lock in PvP, so I'm trying to focus on leveling Jahira, so she can start tagging along with sis's Rheugan and a few of our Feathermoon friends. Rajji has also been getting some play time, because I want a second 90 hunter, and want to see more of the game's storyline from the Horde side. So far he's almost halfway through 87, in Kun Lai, which is still one of my favorite zones. Getting xp for pet battles is helping a lot, too.

Lord of the Rings Online has been somewhat neglected lately, but having a year-long subscription to it means that it will be there whenever I do want to play. I have gotten one or two more characters a new store-bought horse with my accumulated points, but I've been slacking on taking screenshots.

I did remember to get Dirken's new friend.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has gone free-to-play recently, and I've been goofing around on that whenever I get the chance. My old laptop can't handle the graphics, so I have to borrow sis's computer, which means I can only play when she's not home, but it gives me a couple hours on my days off. My altaholicism has followed me into that game, and so far I have a Sith sorcerer, Imperial agent/sniper, a Jedi sentinel and consular (who will eventually be going shadow once I get through the beginning zone), a trooper/commando, and a smuggler who is still in the starter zone. I'll probably roll a bounty hunter someday, but I'm not sure about the Sith warrior. I didn't really care for the inquisitor's storyline, and I'm not very impressed with the Imperial side in general. I think I'm just too 'nice' for their sheer ruthlessness. Light points all the way! Also, since it's only been on sis's computer, I don't have any screenshots. :(

That's all I can think of, game-wise. Only other things going on right now is work (blah) and real-life issues that no one would want to hear about. My depression has been up and down, mostly down, but at least I have Feathermeet in July to look forward to. We've already got our plane tickets and everything, so I'll have something to be happy about soon. I don't know when I'll have the time/energy/brain power for another blog post so I'm not gonna make any promises as far as that goes.

/waves

A few things I learned at Feathermeet

1. Seattle is pretty.
2. Apparently I need to get myself Rock Band and learn how to play. And maybe get over my shyness at singing out loud in front of people. (not likely)
3. Cards Against Humanity is the worst (and best) game ever.
4. The AFK Tavern is awesome.
5. West coast time zone still does not make me a morning person.
6. 5 days without WoW isn't that bad when I have enough distractions.
7. Flying is not as bad as I thought it would be.
8. Airports are confusing.
9. Being surrounded by friends is the best cure for depression ever.

And finally...
10. Feathermoon is full of some pretty danged amazing people. I <3 you guys.

Well, I guess I asked for it...

So, I was tinkering on Lord of the Rings Online, getting some deeds done, when sis mentioned that Ankha was up. I think I was cursing at my old laggy computer the entire time I was switching games, and when WoW finally started and I logged on Max, I rushed him to Hyjal while she guarded the kitty on Rheugan. Fortunately, I already had a 'strip' gear setting, although I didn't have my new taming macro on his BM-spec bars, so he wound up taming her with no deterrence or speed potion. It went well despite all that, in fact I don't even think she took much of his health before the tame finished.

Well, I hopped back to LotR after that to finish my deed-grinding, but before I got off the computer for the night, I got back on Max and did a bit of leather farming. He and Winter 'clicked' much better than Kel did with her version, so now I feel a little better about the possibility of Kel letting her go. It isn't going to happen unless Kel desperately needs stable space, though. I love these spirit kitties too much.

Since I had Max in Twilight Highlands already (yay dragonscales), I took a look around the map just in case. Karoma was being an elusive little bugger, but NPCScan went off on the second Sambas spawn point that I checked.

He's still named 'Cat' for now, since I wasn't really expecting to find him, and if I had already planned a name for him, I've forgotten it. I'm not totally positive that Max will keep him, but maybe I just need to take them out for some bonding time. We'll have to see what happens.

And finally, the reason that I was on LotR? I was grinding Turbine points from old deeds on my mini army of alts, so that my burglar could get his pretty Steed of the Burglar.

The best news is, all that grinding seems to have cured my case of 'blahs' as far as LotRO is concerned. WoW is still the current #1 game that I want to play right now, thanks to Max and his pet shenanigans, but I've rediscovered the fun in my second favorite.

And now I need to get to bed while I'm still awake enough to make it down the hallway. /Waves

'Short' Update...

... Because work has me all tired out again.

First, the big news. Max has finished another goal.



I'm beginning the camp for Skoll now, although at the moment it's just been logging in periodically to check his spawn points. I may attempt an all-night camp tonight, since I have tomorrow off from work.

Beta spoilers ahead!!

In other news, I got my beta invite right after sis did, and I've been poking around with it a little. My pandaren monk is 16 so far, and has been fairly fun. It seemed a little lackluster at first, but after his first dungeon run, with a few new gear peices, he's finally able to kill things relatively quickly. I'm just very happy that my 'real' monk is going to be spoiled rotten with heirlooms. >.>

As far as the other new stuff goes, I've copied most of my level-85 characters over. The hunter bugs has made it a bit frustrating to play Kel, but I've done some questiing on her and I love it so far. I keep forgetting that I don't have to be at range any more, I can pewpew things right in the face now. That is, whenever her pet lets the mob get that close. The growl change is pretty neat, and danged useful when I'm too lazy to redo my pet attack macro. :P Just having her pet on 'assist' makes sure he is after the target as soon as she starts shooting, and he usually grabs it before it comes near her.

I haven't done much on either Kal or Arien, so I can't say much about warrior/paladin changes. Rynia hasn't seen much attention, either, but I blame Blizzard for that. Destruction is ridiculous right now, mana-wise, to the point where I don't even want to try doing anything on her because she is out of mana after about 3-4 spells. She might kill one mob in 3 or 4 spells, but if she aggro's a group, I don't know what I would do. So now she's just sitting, until something gets adjusted.

Caderly, on the other hand...

I love what Blizz did with shadow priests. Cad is so much fun right now, I've been on him more often than even Kel. The shadow orb mechanic is way easier to manage, and having it under control, instead of having to wait on random procs, is so much better. The new version of his apparitions is tons of fun, too. And his survivability and mana management has gotten way better, as well. If nothing major is changed before MoP goes live, he will probably become my #2 main for the expansion.

(I'm pretty sure everyone knows that absolutely nothing will move Kel from #1. Right? :) )

I copied both Jahira and Windstar, so that I could play with both feral and balance, without having to worry about the issues with dual specs at the beginning of the beta. I have to say, I'm very happy with the new cosmetic glyphs. Moonkin form has never felt exactly right with Jahira, so it's nice to have the astral glyph so she can at least appear as herself. I know some (maybe most) people don't like it for various reasons, but it works for me.

As for Windstar, the very first thing I did was equip the stag glyph. And then run laps all over the grass next to 'their' house for several minutes. I can't even describe how excited I am, all about that one little glyph. Windstar, my druid of the Antler, is allowed to take the form of the demi-god she worships. This has so much in-character meaning for her, I have to admit I get a tiny bit choked up when I think about it. That probably sounds silly, but Windstar is a much-loved character for me, and thinking of how happy and awed this will make her... I can't even describe it.

And now I think I'm going to end on that note, before I start sounding like a total idiot. :P

Little Talia is hanging around level 66 now, and I think I'm going to try to get another one (or two) tonight. /Waves

p.s. I really did mean to keep this post short. Really.

Why hello there...

It's funny what you can find when you aren't looking.

A couple days ago, I had my neglected troll hunter Rajji out, doing his Firelands dailies so he could open the vendor to get his gun and scope schematics, when I happened to fly over a big blue surprise. About a minute later, Raj had a new buddy.


This is his third spirit beast, joining Wraith (Gondria) and Snowcloud (Loque). And unless I happen to stumble over Karoma and can't resist, that will be all for Rajji.

Shortly afterwards, Raj was working on the dailies in Molten Front, and found a certain hyperactive green spider. After looking up the taming technique on wowhead, I gave it a try. Well, okay, a few tries. Okay fine, he whooped poor Rajji's tail and I finally had to admit defeat, after many deaths. Raj just didn't have the HP or the amount of haste to beat Kirix's stunning poison(even with sis bringing her hunter Booggah, with a core hound, to help). I didn't give up completely though. See, Rajji has this thing with green pets, and Kel's Fidget (Deth'tilac) has made me sort of like the Firelands spider model. So I figured I would just work on Rajji's gear a bit, and try again another day.

Well, I was doing Arien's dailies today (for the same reasons, yay for multiple engineers?), when I found Kirix up again. I decided what the heck, and switched to Rajji, who had stocked up on haste elixirs and speed potions, and was parked by Kirix's path. It took a few more deaths, and I finally asked my sis to bring Booggah and his core hound to help again, but finally Raj's tame beat Kirix's stun. I think the neighbors probably heard me cheering afterwards. XD


After taking so long to tame, with so much frustration, (and so many repair bills,) he totally earned that name. >.>

So after that was over sis ran around a bit looking for the rest of the fire spiders, and found Solix sitting in his lava pool. We looked up the taming process for him, and (with a bit of encouraging from me) she had a go at taming him. It was ridiculously easy, compared to Kirix's stubbornness. It was pretty amusing to see and hear her reaction to having a spider following her around afterwards. (She doesn't seem nearly as tolerant of them as me. Yet.)


The name was my idea. >.> She said he needed a cute, innocent name, and that was what popped into my head. :D

So now Rajji has exactly 3 stable slots left, and I think I'm saving them for any new pets Blizzard gives us in MoP. He has a couple pets that I'm not really attached to, but I'd rather not let any of them go, since they weren't exactly easy to tame. That's okay though, because it's just more encouragement for me to go finish leveling Max. :D

Speaking of leveling, Talia the rogue is now 64 and still going. \o/
/Waves!

Unexpected

So, Max has been continuing his 'level to a certain point and then camp for a pet' routine. His current project was getting to 76 and then looking for Loque'nahak. The getting-to-76 part was easy enough, but I never expected the second part to work out this well.


Frozen kitty!


With his new buddy.

It was almost funny. I had both my acounts going, and was doing archeology on Rynia, pausing every so often to do a lap around the Basin. I had just finished one such lap, and decided to park at one of the gorilla spawn points to afk again for a bit. Well, when I stopped at the first point I reached, I swear something was telling me to go check the other spawn before I went back to Ryn. NPCScan went off as soon as I got within reach. It was almost like Loque wanted me to come find him.

He's not named yet. I'm thinking of just sitting Max and Kel somewhere and trying a few words in Darnassian, and see if something clicks. That will have to wait a while, though, because I'm already running late for work. >.<

/Waves

Why didn't I try this sooner...

Sabre + Kibler's Bits = .....



Yes, he really is the same size as her mount. /boggle
(This is what happens when I get a cold and stay up way too late.)

I'm still here...

Yes, I'm having another fail-blogger spell. Work has been insane with the holidays, and me and sis have been trying to get ourselves ready as well. And then there's the stupid $%^$ing virus that got on my good laptop. I'm having to use my old one for now, (thank goodness I've been keeping it more or less up-to-date) which now can only run Lord of the Rings. So unless I get desperate enough to borrow sis's old laptop, WoW is unavailable until my 'puter is cleaned up and fixed.

Lesson from all this? Never trust a website that has issues with pop-ups. Even something as innocent-seeming as a site for song lyrics. :(

This will likely be the only blog post I make til my good 'puter is fixed, since all my screenies and most of my story-related stuff was on that one. Good news is, my dad has a friend that can fix it. Bad news is, I have no idea how long it will take. Hopefully not more than a couple days. This old thing I'm using now has it's fair share of issues, and is slow as heck. If I didn't need my gaming fix, I would probably not even bother. *sigh*

I don't even.....

While tinkering around on LotRO, I was reminded that today was the last day for Brewfest. I hopped over to WoW to give all my available toons a Direbrew run, for fun and one last chance for easy shinies. Kalenedral wound up getting the kodo mount, which I was mostly 'eh' about, because she most likely won't ever use it. She also got one of the tanking trinkets 'stolen' by a mage. *grumble* Poor Jahira didn't get anything, and then it was Kel's turn. She got a tankard in her keg, my only character to get it this year (still no ram, though), and then on a whim I decided to go out to Hyjal and check for Magria. I really wasn't expecting anything, because it was around peak time for the server, so if one of the kitties had spawned, they would've been tamed/killed already. At least, that's what I was thinking as I flew Kel over to the spawn/patrolling route. Well, guess what?









And after the tame was finished, and my little blue kitty stepped to his place by Kel's side, I spent several minutes quietly hyperventilating over my keyboard.

Kel now has 8 spirit beasts. If I remember correctly, the only one she's missing is Ghostcrawler, who, as I've said before, I have no interest in. I can't ever describe the feeling when I saw the glowing shape on my screen and Silver Dragon blared out who it was. I was shaking so bad it seemed to take forever to actually get clear of the elementals, get Magria tagged, and wait for the cast bar to slowly tick down. Magria was a bit harder to convince than Ankha was, and for the last second or two of the tame I was wondering if Kel was going to live. But she made it, and now I officially want no more pets for her. Although, if I ever see Deth'tilac undisturbed, it will be very tempting. >.>

Kel and Sky had some bonding time while Kel did her Molten Front dailies, where I got to find a 'new friend'. A Belf hunter was doing the Shadow Wardens dailies, and she pulled her own version of Magria out to show off. There was a lot of emoting for a minute or two before we each got back to finishing our quests. And then to top it off, I saw another blue spirit kitty while killing spiders afterwards. It was really nice to see other people with that pet and not have to suppress any jealousy. :P

I'm not sure when my head is going to come down out of the clouds after this. Seems like lately, just when RL stuff starts getting me worn down and depressed, something happens that makes it all alright again. Not sure exactly how long my in-game luck is going to last, but man I'm enjoying it as long as I can. My only problem now is which spirit beasts Kel will have with her. Poor, poor Loq, he has so much competition now. Between him, Sky, and Icestorm, I don't know how much 'out' time anyone else will have. At least it might be easier to make myself keep grinding through dailies and heroics with her now. Although LotR is still taking most of my attention.

Aaaand I should probably go make myself try to sleep, it's getting late and I have work again in the morning. Dang I wish I could get my old schedule of afternoon/evening shifts back. I am so not a morning person. :P
...*stares and squees at Sky some more*
/Waves

I don't even have words...

So, you know how I mentioned looking for Skoll last night, when I had those two surprise tames? Apparently, he heard me. Or something. Because my sis found him waiting when she was out leveling her worgen druid. I am still completely boggled by this, so I'll just let the screenshots tell what just happened.





Just to give some idea of how I feel right now, I have been camping for Skoll off and on ever since patch 4.0 brought the new stable space. Since that was what, almost a year ago? I am just... wow. I think this actually beats my Loque'nahak camp, which was the longest and most frustrating camp that I have ever had. It still hasn't completely sunk in that he's finally Kel's.

The funny thing is, I don't even really like the Northrend worg models. They're way too skinny, they have a very awkward run, and the sounds kind of annoy me. I had started looking for Skoll just to get Kel all the current spirit beasts, just for the fun of it. I never really expected her to use him much whenever she did find him. But now that I finally have him, all that has changed. Just one look at that face totally makes up for any so-called 'problems' with that model. I seriously love this guy, and he's not going to be seeing the stables for a long, long time.

And one last thing- Thank you, sis, for finding Kel's three newest friends, and telling me so I could come tame them. And for being willing to share your computer yesterday, instead of making me wait for mine to start up. I <3 you. :)

Like Potato Chips...

...You can never stop at one. Or three.

So Kel has two new spirit beasts, and neither one is the one I thought I wanted. I had been checking the cats' spawn/patrol route whenever I did Kel's Firelands dailies, hoping for Magria. I hadn't seen a whisker of any of the new spirit beasts, though I had heard of one Ankha tame that happened about 5 minutes after I left. So last night, after I had gotten home from work/grocery shopping, I was getting ready for a quick shower when sis asks me if I had anyone that wanted to tame Ankha. At first I was thinking, no, not Ankha, I want the blue kitty. Then I stopped and really thought about it. Coming to see Ankha wandering around on sis's computer convinced me. Fortunately, Kel had been logged in Aviana's shrine, so it was a short flight down, and there she was.


Kel already had an equipment setup to strip for the tame, which went smoothly. Ankha didn't even hurt Kel much, which should've been my first hint.

About 10 minutes later, sis called me again. Ban'thalos was up, which she thought was odd since he's supposed to share a timer with the kitties. Another hunter was there, but when sis whispered him, he said he already had Ban, so sis let me have her computer again to log on Kel. She had to get Kel onto the tree, and remind me to place my trap, and once again it was a perfect tame. Banny didn't even get off any moonfire spam.

It took forever to come up with a name for this guy, but finally 'Arrow' just sort of popped into my head. Being that this is a spirit beast, and the only bird-form one at that, I wanted it a little more 'special' for him, hence the funky letter. :P

Winter has bonded with Kel already. I would still love to get Magria, but I'm happy with her. Ærrow is getting along well too, but I'm not sure how much active time he'll get. But I am planning on taming Banny on Max, so I'm not worried about it.

Not long after this, sis's troll Booggah got a couple new buddies, which she tells all about here.

So, now Kel's ambition to tame every spirit beast in the game (except Ghostcrawler, sorry but I'm just not into crabs. Even shiny spirit ones) has been rekindled. The only thing that kept me from running to Northrend to check Skoll last night, was how tired out I was. And the shock of the two unexpected tames in such a short time. Kel is going back to camping him again soon, though.

So besides all the huntery stuff, I have had my druid pair stuck in my head a lot lately, and I have a new sketch of them done, and working on finishing another. I'll be posting them soon, along with a small RP update. And my soon-to-be newly 85 alt that has been taking up all of my game time. >.>
/Waves

I'm a slacker...

Catch-up post coming soon. Getting back into the routine of work and trying to get enough sleep and etc. has been a little crazy.

That is all (for now). /Wave

p.s. Have a (old) random screenshot.

My new favorite things

(Because some things are just way more amusing when you're sick.)






Lifegiving seed + Origami rock = fun times.

Kel's stable is complete.

And the last pet I wanted to make it so? This awesome (and adorable) lil bugger:



That's right, Kel has her little fire turtle. /Cheer!

Short(ish) version, I was questing on my cowdruid Bearkat, when someone in general chat announced that Terropene was up. I did nothing at first, sure that someone would get to him long before I could switch to Kel on alliance side. After a while, when no one seemed to be responding, I figured I would at least go see him. I flew Bear over to Terro's lava pool, found him, and just watched him walking around for a couple minutes. Still no one showed up. I decided, what the heck, let's just see if I can get Kel over here before he gets tamed/killed. I logged off Bear and onto Kel, took the portal to Hyjal, and flew down to the lava. My sister was also there on her troll Booggah, who was still level 80 and couldn't tame him. I refound Terro, still untouched, and sat to watch him for another minute or so. When still no one showed up for him, I gave up arguing with fate. I had switched to Kel's MM spec, so I silencing shot him, popped a speed pot, and hit tame. His fire attack still hurt even at level 85 with 100k hp, but I got him on the first try. It took a second to sink in, but as I looked at the shrunk turtle standing at her side, poking his nose into her pack for a treat, it finally sunk in that he was finally mine. I can't even describe what it felt like.

- - -
(Delayed holiday shenanigans)
A couple weeks ago, me (duo-ing Kel and Jahira), sis (on druid-Alanon), and our best friend (on his new-ish worgen shadow priest) went to get all the Northrend instance elders. Well, the elder in Drak'Theron Keep is right inside King Dred's room. We killed the first couple of packs to reach him, talked to him to receive our coins, and started to leave. However, a crazy idea stopped me. I had to argue with myself for a bit (what does Kel need 3 devilsaurs for, anyways?), but in the end, Dred just looked too darn lonely to leave behind. So, well,....



His name is Fury, which was a random suggestion from our friend. It fits him. :) I now have every color devilsaur in the game, with Kel's 3 and Rajji's white Ibite.

So yea, I think I'm pretty much done getting Kel any new pets. She has almost all the rares I wanted on her, and she's running out of space, and I want to keep a couple spots open for anything Blizz decides to toss at us hunters in the future. I think Charcoal, Rage, Loq, Ash (Ashtail the blue fox), and Arohk will keep her more than happy enough now. And of course, there will always be Sabre.

This does NOT mean I'm not going after any more rare/unique pets. I just have to level up some of my alts first. ;) Max has to level a bit more to get Duskfang, and needs to go look for Olm. He's going to be the lucky alt to get Jadefang, too. And my Hordies have been tugging at me lately, so Rajji will probably be getting leveled up as well, albeit slowly. Also, I think my Draenei over on Silver Hand will wind up being a fox collector. Maybe cats too, after randomly finding Humar on her a little while ago.

And that's all for now. /Waves

..../hugs Charcoal

Patch thoughts so far...

In spite of most of my favorite addons being borked(/cry @ PetEmote and MyRolePlay), I have been busy the last couple days. It was mostly herb farming for the first couple days, to get everyone glyphed up, but I've done some pet-grinding and a couple heroics on some of my guys/girls, and here's some first impressions.

Hunters - I love focus. LOVE IT. Also, my hunters have almost all their old buddies back. Rajji has Razer the raptor, as well as all 3 of his lions (one of each color). He just needs to retame his serpent and he'll be all set. Tadrith has Aubri the dragonhawk and Treyvan the bear (his spirit beast has been renamed, of course). Kel has... way too many to remember. But I'll try. Tyran the devilsaur is back in the stables, as well as her owl Verdan, who will become ghostly when Cata goes live. And Ruggs the rhino, Shimmer the moth (who is white this time, since my lowbie orc alt has a blue one), and Kymeera the chimera. And Rhaj. Dear Rhaj, who was her very first pet, who kept the name through several skin changes, from nightsaber to black panther to white tiger. He had to go bye-bye when she got Sabre, but now he's back, and likely to be the first of her new ones to 80. I never realized how much I missed him until I went to tame him, but seeing him back at her side just feels... right. And yes, there will be a story later.

Paladin - HOLY FLIP BLIZZARD!!! Arien is more fun than ever. I love holy power, I LOVE the new ability, Templar's Verdict, seeing it crit for over 10k on a training dummy made my eyes almost pop out. Word of glory is awesome too. Instant heal with no mana cost? Yes please. (So useful for kiting Chillmaw.) Her dps has seen a pretty hefty increase, and with the new awesome currency system, she's going to be getting her couple last ilvl 200 items replaced before long. Short version: my pally addiction has been renewed.

Druids - I am sort of 'meh' about feral now. I haven't actually done anything with my feral druids yet (too busy with hunters), but the talent tree is a tad disappointing. Bear tanks should be happy, but the kitty side seems too shallow, with too many bear-oriented 'filler' talents to reach the good kitty ones. Balance does seem to be more fun now, though. I am liking the new eclipse system, and Starsurge is awesome. I will most likely be taking Jahira and Windstar through heroics soon to tinker more with both specs. Once I can make myself leave Arien and my hunters alone for a while...

Mage - Holy cow, Vanyell is fun. He has his water elemental (and named it Ty), and Ice Lance, and some pretty cool talents. And mana brownies. And space on my quickbars, after having all his port spells consolidated similar to the call pet setup. He's 45 now, btw, and possibly will become one of my 'mains' in Cata.

Warrior, death knight, warlock, rogue, and priest - I haven't really done anything with Kal, Riatha, or Caderly yet, so that will have to wait for a future post. The new stuff for shadow priests look danged awesome though, and I can't wait to start trying it out. I haven't done much with Talia either, though I did get her spec'ed and glyphed (more or less). She on my list of 'lowbies that need to be leveled', though, so she'll be shadow-stepping her way along sometime hopefully soon. Rynia has gotten some playtime, and the new stuff for 'locks is fun too (even when all the fun stuff keeps proc'ing right as the mobs die). I really oughta get her up to 80 before Cata comes... :\

Shaman - Taarren's elemental spec is even more fun than before. Unfortunately, her haste seems to have gone down, so she's not doing so well in heroics because stuff dies before she can do much more than drop her totems, fire nova, and flameshock. She had gotten to play with Earthquake though, and I like it. Finally shamans have some real AoE! I haven't even done the talents for her enhancement side, because I really believe I'll just be ignoring it, like I have been. I'll fix it up and test it out sometime, though.

And that's all I can think of so far. I've got another post, about what I want to do before Cata and what I want to do first when it comes out, sorting itself out in my head, so that may be coming up hopefully in the next day or so.

/Waves

My 2 cents on RealID forums.

So, this thing Blizzard wants to do with the forums, with putting people's real names on their posts, is ALL OVER the blogosphere right now, and I've been reading a lot of it, and this is just my simple opinion.

Bad, bad idea.

Seriously, what are these guys thinking? ARE they even thinking?? First of all, as BBB pointed out, this won't stop all the trolls, because some people won't care. Heck, some people might even be encouraged by this, I don't know.

Second, this is a frickin' game, NOT Facebook. I have a Facebook (and I am proud to say that everyone on my small list of friends are all people that I know). As one person stated, in a epically awesome post, most people come to Warcraft to escape the real world. We don't want to add RL social garbage to it.

And thirdly, as others have also pointed out, this is a HUGE breach in personal security. Just because some people don't care, or have common names, that doesn't mean everyone does. I haven't been stalked or harassed personally, but hearing about others that have scares the crap outa me. The fact that I have discovered, through a website someone linked, that there are exactly 2 people with my name in the U.S. just makes it worse. Only the fact that I am one of the most boring people on the planet makes me feel any better. Anyone trying to stalk me/steal my identity/what have you will be very disappointed. And thank goodness my ex was never the stalker/vengeful type.

I have never posted anything on the forums, and now I never will. (Not that I would ever have anything worth posting anyways, since I don't do theorycrafting and I'm too shy about my RP stories to put any in such a highly-trafficked place.) I don't plan on quitting, because the game itself is still fun, and it is still my main form of escape, and stress relief. If Blizz keeps up with this garbage, though, I'm not sure how long it will truly be an 'escape'.

I have been playing this game since vanilla release. Thinking of this makes me very sad.