Adventures in Skywall

Last week, AlternativeChat posed a unique little challenge for us in honor of WoW's 10th Anniversary - 10 Years 10 Questions. Since I wanted to take part, and I'm not really good with talking or recording videos, I decided to answer the questions here on my blog. If you would also like to participate, please click the link above to the Godmother's site and check it out. Now, here are my answers.

1. Why did you start playing Warcraft?
I started playing WoW because many of my friends at the time were playing. When my boyfriend set up his account, I ended up making my first character there to try out the game. I was hooked ever since! If it weren't for my friends pushing me to give it a chance, I don't think I would have ever tried it because I thought paying a monthly fee for a game was silly.

2. What was the first ever character you rolled?
My first character was a troll priest that I originally made on my boyfriend's account. I'm not sure what I named her, but I know I was questing in The Barrens eventually. Sadly, she is no longer with us today.

3. Which factors determined your faction choice in game?
Hm, I'm not really sure. I definitely knew that all of my friends were playing Horde at the time, so that definitely swayed me into going with that faction. I also saw most of the Alliance races as being boring and bland. While I do have Alliance characters now, my allegiance remains true to the Horde!

Lok'tar ogar!

4. What has been your most memorable moment in Warcraft and why?
My most memorable moment has to be when my Burning Crusade guild finally downed Leotheras the Blind. I don't know why it was such a glorious moment, but it was. I guess it was because we were working on him for a long time. It was also the night that I got my Fang of the Leviathan, so that's why that sword is so special to me.

5. What is your favourite aspect of the game and has this always been the case?
Collecting! I've always been a collector. My bank and bags were always filled with mini pets and mounts. I also used to collect old gear and wear it around the city before we had transmog. I'm definitely grateful for Blizzard continuing to add more storage options, because I really do need it! Hah!

6. Do you have an area in game that you always return to?
Yes, it's Azshara. I used to like it back in BC because it was a quiet place I could go and level up my fishing. Now I visit from time to time when I'm passing through Orgrimmar. I still love the colors of the zone, but I'm sad a lot of my favorite places there aren't in game anymore.

7. How long have you /played and has that been continuous?

I've been playing WoW since 2007. I took a two/three month break during WotLK when I was having computer issues and my old guild was falling apart. Since then, I have played continuously. Below is the amount of time I've played on Vel.

8. Admit it: do you read quest text or not?
I always read quest text on my first play through. So usually on Vel, it takes me a while to finish off leveling because I like to know what's going on in each zone through the questing. On my alts, I usually just blaze through it, unless it's my Alliance character. Sometimes they have quests that aren't available to Horde. I like to read those also. :)

9. Are there any regrets from your time in game?
Not really. I've always been nice, and did pretty much what I wanted. If I could go back, maybe I would have joined a new raiding guild for WotLK, because I think experiencing ICC with a guild for the first time would have been pretty amazing.

10. What effect has Warcraft had on your life outside gaming?
Warcraft has brought me together with so many people I would have probably never met if I hadn't played the game. It has offered me many funny times to share with my friends. It's empowered me to take risks in life, be the adventurer I want to be, forge my own legacy. It's inspired me to continue writing. To me, WoW will always have a special place in my heart. :)

This topic couldn't have come at a better time. I love WoW, but this is the first time in a long time that I feel like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to do. Last week Mr. and Mrs. WoW asked for some suggestions on things to do in WoW before WoD comes out. Now this wasn't just to be your average, gear up alts, clean out banks, etc., this was supposed to be things that you loved and enjoyed doing! I've been playing a lot lately with my niece, nephew, and some of their friends. They are all still very new to the game, and this is their first expansion where they are max level. We've been going around and collecting things here in there.

1. Achievements
Lately, we have been going back and trying to get them for titles, mounts, and just the general satisfaction of having them done. I'm not finding them as annoying as I previously did. I've also noticed that like me, most of my friends are also going back and getting as many MoP achievements done as they can. I love doing this because this allows me to focus on the new content that comes out without having to sweat about going back to the old world.

2. Pet Battles
I'm pretty behind on this, and I need to focus on this in the upcoming weeks. My goal was to have at least every mini pet to level 10 before WoD. I also have all the wild mini pets already caught, but if someone doesn't, this could be a fun thing to do, if you like that sort of thing.

3. Old Raids
There is always someone out there who is looking to get that certain tier set or even that one perfect piece to complete their transmog. Not to mention some of the really awesome mounts that have a chance to drop. While we have a schedule of what we run weekly - ICC, Ulduar, Firelands, sometimes Dragon Soul, a few weeks back I decided to spice things up with a naked Molten Core run. It was really fun, and we plan to eventually go back and continue on with Blackwing Lair!

Of course amid all of this stuff, I am leveling up some alts to prepare them, but I don't really consider that fun all the time. I do have to say, I'm enjoying questing in Northrend with my mage on Madoran. Anyway, I hope this may have given you some ideas on things to do if you're feeling bored. I also look forward to reading what others are doing to pass their time until WoD.

Back before the world revamp for Cataclysm, Un'Goro Crater housed a ton of Nintendo references. You could find an NPC named Linken that would give out a few quests that had some pretty unique rewards. I still have my Faded Photograph, but none of the other items. Linken can now be found as one of the random party members that joins you during The Protectors of Hyjal daily.

image from WoWpedia

Last month, I ordered The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. I didn't even get a chance to play it yet since I've been finishing up Yoshi's New Island in between redoing my Animal Crossing: New Leaf town. It's no secret that I've been a fan of the Zelda games since I owned my Nintendo way back when I was a small child, and one of my all time favorite games is Ocarina of Time. I know a lot of people tend to do a Mario transmog, but I hardly ever see anyone doing one of Link. As always, this is catered to cloth wearers, and I think it looks wonderful on humans and blood elves!

Helm: Feralfen Hood

Shoulders: Resilient Mantle

Chest: Green Silk Armor
Shirt:Wound Dressing

Gloves: Elementalist Gloves

Belt: Geomancer's Chord
Legs: Stoneweaver Leggings

Boots: Resilient Boots
Main Hand: Azuresong Mageblade
Off-Hand: Khadgar's Knapsack (for your Rupees, of course!)

WoWHead Set Link

As a few more things to make the look a bit more authentic, I suggest using the Nordrassil Wisp mini pet that can be caught in Mount Hyjal; It makes for a great looking Navi! I used WoWmodel Viewer to be able to mount an Alliance mount on the Blood Elf, but they have plenty of other horse options for you to pick from. I think this look is perfect for any adventurer who wants to take down the evil Gannon... er, I mean Garrosh!

First off let me start off by saying that Siege of Orgrimmar had its 1 year birthday this week! I want to wish it a happy birthday. I didn't really need an excuse to bake a cake, but wanting to make this picture definitely gave me a better one. It's a red velvet cake with Nutella in the middle and cream cheese frosting. Of course it was terribly decorated by me and Pigletoos. I hope Garrosh enjoyed it!

I haven't even had a chance to discuss the official cinematic or Lords of War videos yet. The official WoD trailer is absolutely amazing, and even more stunning to listen to with a really good pair of headphones on. I love the immersive sound it has. You can almost feel Mannoroth walking up behind you! Personally the best part for me was seeing Garrosh save Grommash from what should have been his death.

Lords of War is done in the same art style as the Burdens of Shaohao. Personally I love it, and I could watch a complete movie done like this. I hope Blizzard continues to do these for each expansion. As I write this there has only been two parts released, but by the time you read this there will be three or more. So far my favorite is the story of Grommash.

I've also started to freak out lately with the addition of patch 6.0.2 going live on the PTR. I've been trying to get some MoP things done, and I'm pretty close to getting there. My only big goal left is to try to complete Brawler's Guild. I was stuck on G.G. Engineering, but after much persistence last night I was able to complete that entire rank. Now I'm stuck on Hexos! I want to complete Brawler's Guild more for the mount than the title since I never use any. I'm so close to getting Mount Parade, but I think I will have to wait for Warlords to put me over 200.

I wish I had more to talk about, but nothing really important has been going on. Between the holiday last week and a new cat, things are still running abnormally. I promise that next week to have a good post lined up! For now, I'm porting out to enjoy an early start to my weekend.

So if you follow me on Twitter, then you know last week and this week was filled with me venting my frustrations about Brawler's Guild. I was finally able to complete it this week after banging my head over and over into the different fight. So as I sit around on the Skybag and look down below on the people fighting through the ranks, I can't help but smile.

I don't really view myself as a good player, and I've never been really good at moving my character around while maintaining a constant rotation. I have to say that Brawler's Guild has definitely helped me in this sense. This was a personal goal I had set for myself to complete, and I couldn't be more proud. In this post I would like to talk about what bosses gave me the most trouble so that maybe some others who are struggling may be able to beat them. I've taken these suggestions from a bunch of different sites. I'm in no way claiming to be an expert on anything, and these are just things that worked for me.

The first fight that I seriously never thought I would get pass was G.G Engineering. I kept taking massive amounts of damage due to the fact that I kept getting hit with the rockets that get thrown out by Max Megablast. I ended up going frost spec for this fight so I had a little more survivability, and I didn't stand on top of Bo Bobble the entire time like I kept reading others doing. Instead, when I would see that Goblin Rocket Barrage was starting, then I would make an effort to be close to Bo so they would have a chance to hit him. When I beat them, I think it was just because I was pulling high dps.

My next challenge, like many people, was Hexos. The BEST piece of information I found was don't guide yourself through the maze, guide Hexos instead. This worked perfectly since our ISP isn't really the best, and I'm usually around 80 latency on a good night. I went fire for this fight, and I kept my ratation pretty simple - no more than 5 or so moves not including cooldowns. I thought I would be stuck on this fight for a long time, but I was wrong. I beat him the second day I got to him. Not too shabby!

Nibbleh was a pain! I was fire spec again for this fight and used all my instant cast moves. I used the "show move pad" option which allowed me to toggle a backwards walk. I also used the RP walk so I was going slower that usual. I was walking him around fine, but for some reason I would get hung up on the corners. Sometimes he would stop, and it would cause him to get stacks of his poison. I read a comment that said to prevent this from happening, make a curved edge rather than a 90° angle. This ended up working perfectly, and after an afternoon of fighting him, he was done.

Of course Blizzard couldn't have just been like, "Good job, you made it this far! Here is your mount!" Nope! Ahoo'ru stands in the way of that, and to make matters worse he's judging you, ugh. I tried and I tried, and I just couldn't do it. I ended up getting frustrated on two different nights, logged off and cried. The night before I beat him I actually killed him but died to the rain of fire. I was devastated. The next day I poked my head around and reevaluated the fight. What helped me a ton was the use of the Pi'jiu Brews that drop off the ghost in the Pi'jiu Village on the Timeless Isle. There are 3 different kinds, and you can use each one during the fight. I farmed 10 of each, and I didn't even need to use them all. I also made myself Drums of the Forgotten Kings as I was usually alone with no one else to buff me. On Wednesday I finally got the perfect Angel spawns complete with perfect DPS to be able to defeat him well before rain of fire began.

So with a sigh of relief, it was all over. I bought my mount, and I left! Was it tough? Towards the end, yes. Was it fun? As much as I complained, yes it was fun, and I'm looking forward to the new bosses in Warlords. Do I have some advice? Make your buff food, buy good flasks, pre-pot, mess with your spec, try out different things. Keep bashing your head into it over and over. I found every attempt I would put in would make me get closer and closer to winning. So don't give up, keep going, if I can do it then you can definitely do it!

Last week we said goodbye to the era of MoP. Many people gathered to pay their respects to the Dark Portal. There was a ton PvP, silly talking, and just a lot of people hanging out and having a good time. I was pet battling in Nagrand, and the first time I went check there weren't many people. After about an hour, everyone starting gathering. I wish I could have stayed up until the servers went down, but I spend about 3 hours hanging out and even got to meet up with some people from Twitter.

After the patch dropped, I felt overwhelmed as always. Thankfully the days before I spent organizing my bags on my main and alts and placing them in the city so that they could be ready to go. Logging in felt a bit odd with the new character models and specs. To be honest, I didn't have any trouble at all looking over the new specs, re-glyphing, and re-gemming if I had to. My mage feels pretty good, and as fire I can pull pretty decent DPS. After I took some time with each of my characters, I decided to play though the event area in the Blasted Lands.

I really liked the quest line and while it was short, I definitely prefer this to just a scenario. I really liked the rewards that were given also and that you get a title at the end. The items helped a few of my alts replace a few pieces they didn't upgrade yet. The two mini pets from the event are absolutely adorable even though the Iron Starlette can make quite a ruckus! I also had to kill quite a few orcs to get the Bronze Whelpling to drop, but I'm sure Vol'jin would be pleased.

Hallow's End is going on now, and I spent last weekend Trick-or-Treating around Azeroth so I could get both mini pets. I managed to buy both and have a few candies left over to start saving towards getting some Yipp-Saron costumes. Those go perfectly with my Old God Fan Club so I definitely want to try to buy a few stacks. This is also another year that I get a chance at the Headless Horseman's mount. It's been 7 years and still nothing. Let's just say we don't have a good friendship at all... maybe this year he will be nice to me if I promise to share my candy with him.

So this past weekend was Blizzcon. I watched it comfortably from my couch at home. Sadly there wasn't much to talk about in the WoW department, but I was definitely excited to see some of the pictures from the movie. I'm also still a little disappointed that people with the virtual ticket weren't allowed to view the "clips upstairs" everyone kept hyping. Each faction had their own movie site (fightforthehorde.com and fightforthealliance.com) where you could sign up and receive an image pack that had a few avatars and different sizes of what I'm assuming will be the official movie posters. I totally will need to get each one for my gaming room!

Of course, Blizzcon couldn't be complete without some snacks and drinks. I ended up making a green drink to mimic the Blood of Mannoroth. It was non-alcoholic, but I'm sure you could throw in some of your favorite liquor to give it more of a kick. I might make myself another one of these for the release night of Warlords.

Blood of Mannoroth Drink

1-3 scoops lime sherbet

1 part ginger ale

1 part lemon/lime soda

Place the scoops of lime sherbet into the bottom of the glass, and pour the ginger ale and soda on top. As the sherbet melts into the liquids, it will create a sickly green hue in the glass. Enjoy! (Note: May cause a demon craze or blood lust... drink at your own risk!)

Since I've pretty much accomplished most things I wanted to do before Warlords releases, I will just be leveling up my alt mage and pet battling most of this week. Me and Grommloc can't wait to take over Draenor! See you on the other side of the Dark Portal!

I will be honest, I never thought I would camp for this mount just because of all the hype surrounding it. While looking through the new mounts, I had my heart set on getting the Sapphire Riverbeast from Silthide, but I never decided to camp for it. I figured I should work on gearing out my main and leveling up her professions. Well on Sunday I planned on fishing and maybe starting to capture rares of all the wild pets of Gorgrond. When I got to the zone, everyone was in a buzz about Poundfist starting to spawn on EU realms. My interest shifted from pet battling to camping. I ended up looking through group finder until I found a raid that was just forming on the Venture Co. realm. Being on a PvP realm always makes me feel a little nervous, but to my surprise, everyone was well behaved. We were even working with the small group of Alliance that were camping also. After about 8 hours of waiting, he spawned. I am happy to say that not only did the entire 40 man Horde group get a tag, but the Alliance group did, and a few others who came when it was announced in trade.

So yesterday I went on with what I had originally planned to do Sunday. Skywall/Drak'thul seemed to be one of the last servers to get the Poundfist spawn, and it wasn't nice at all. From what I gathered from chat, even though there were multiple groups waiting for him, a small group had him spawn close to Breaker's Crown and nuked him down without telling anyone. Needless to say a lot of people were heartbroken, and my heart definitely goes out to them.

Hope is not all lost! He will return! After clicking through numerous threads on the forums and reading WoWhead for information, I've compiled a small list to help people who feel hopeless with this rare spawn.

- 48 Hours: It seems that the server has to be up for at least a full 48 hours before he begins to spawn again. Keep this in mind with server restarts.

- Spawn Locations: He has 5 spawn locations that are easily cover able by a large group. I personally set my heartstone to Breaker's Crown since my group was camping north, and if he were to spawn around there it would have been faster for me to hearth instead of wait for a summon or try to run.

- Teamwork: On the rare occasion where each faction is willing to work together, this is a great advantage. We don't live in a perfect world, but it's worth a try to see if the opposite faction would be willing to make friends for at least a little while.

- He's up: CC can be used on him to help ensure everyone from your group can get to him (NO Mind Control at all because I've read that it can cause him to despawn).

Now for the bad stuff. There are the people who try to kill it as fast as possible just to upset everyone else. This is exactly what happened on my main server. Another frustrating issue is server phasing. I've read reports of people on the same server having issues seeing him because their group was in a different phase. Sometimes he appears on the multiple phases, and sometimes he doesn't. I guess this is just the luck of the draw.

Of course, if you still don't get him, there is always next time. Don't burn yourself out over a mount. Warlords of Draenor isn't going away any time soon, and chances are the hype surrounding him will also fade away in time. Good luck to you all and happy hunting!

I cannot believe it's coming up on almost a month since I've blogged. I've really been way too busy playing and enjoying the expansion. I've added so many new goodies to my collections lately that I can't remember them all. I know I've gotten a variety of mini pets, including Syd the Squid! That has been on my want list for a long time now. It was just a matter of getting it to drop from a bag. I've also added Drake of the South Wind to my mount collection this week. It's nice to cross one more old raid off my weekly list.

I also got some gear upgrades recently: Belt of Singing Hooves and Rotmonger Bracers. I like the pace at which I'm getting gear. I'm slowly getting upgrades, and I now have to look over each and focus more on the stats rather than item level. I'm currently 628, and with the buff to mages I'm definitely not struggling as bad as I was at the beginning of the expansion. I've also been running dungeons with my niece, nephew, a mutual friend, and Pigletoos. My goal is to have us all doing heroics which is a tremendous for all of us since some of them are extremely casual players.

Even though I'm having an overall positive experience with the expansion, there are still a few things that I'm not liking. I'm not liking fishing at all. I finally completed the Draenor Angler achievement, and I didn't think that one was too bad, but after looking at my bags, I was confused. Blizzard said that they added all these extra featured, reagent bank, toy box, ect. to get rid of clutter, but I feel like fishing has just caused more. I need to fish up bait to catch a certain amount of different versions of each fish to be able to "skin" the fish to use in other recipes... really? I wish it was back to fish up the fish you need, cook it, profit. I had to vendor so many stacks of fish meat just to clean up my bags. Now it takes up two rows in my reagent bank, but whatever.

Another thing that was just a minor annoyance was archaeology. I was working on an Arakkoa solve that needed 250 fragments. Well, I didn't know that it caps your fragments out to 200, and you have to use the Arakkoa Ciphers to complete it. This is fine for people who never use them, but for someone like me who constantly uses them to speed up discoveries, it was annoying.

The reputation grinds also seem to be pretty tedious. I understand Blizzard not wanting to add a ton of dailies, but I would love at least one or two to give 250 reputation with a faction. I will be grinding out mobs for the remainder of the expansion at this rate. I have set a goal. I'm starting with the Frostwolf Orc clan and at least trying to grind out 1000 reputation per day. This way I'm not killing myself, but I'm still making progress. I can't complain too much though, because I'm also getting drops of Iron Horde Scraps for transmog. It's all working out perfectly!

The Holidays are here and in full effect. I've been doing my Winter Veil things, and getting RL present shopping done. I've also been nominated for the Icecrown Challenge. Me and my niece will be participating in it next week, and talk more about that in a later post. For now, have a wonderful and safe holiday season, and don't forget to stop and enjoy the small things around this time of year.

Last week the lovely Ratsel tagged me in a post to participate in her Icecrown Challenge. While this is a tough time of year for a lot of people, including me and Pig, I still decided to donate what I could because it's for a cause that hits close to home.

In 1998 I lost my brother Matt to suicide. This is something that still effects my family, and it's something that you never truly "get over". It always hits me really hard when I read about someone in the community (online and in real life) or a celebrity takes their own life. I immediately get transported back to the day it happened. It sucks that I had to grow up without him, and now that I'm older, we have so much in common. He loved metal music, video games, and craft beer. These are three things I absolutely adore. He was also a fantasy nerd and loved playing Dungeons and Dragons. I just know he would have loved World of Warcraft, and I just wish I would have been able to introduce him to Azeroth. As I type this with tears in my eyes, I have to remember that even though he's not here in person, he's been here in spirit and got to experience everything from afar. I can't wait for the day where I see him again, and give him a big hug. Love you my brother.

I was going to run ICC with my niece Selindri, but since she's been enjoying her holiday break, I really didn't want to bother her about it. My love Pigletoos decided he would do it with me. This is our picture after we defeated Arthas. I think we look pretty cute in our Winter Veil outfits!

I'd like to thank Ratsel for hosting this charity event for such a wonderful foundation. It not only means a lot to me, but I know it means a lot to a ton of other people out there also. I'm supposed to tag three people to do this, but I don't want to make anyone feel like they need to. So, if you're reading this and would like to participate, please do so. Even if you can't run ICC, you can still donate! Every little bit counts. To learn more, you can visit the links below.

- The Icecrown Challenge
- The Donation Page
- American Foundation for Suicide

The 10th Anniversary event was supposed to end this past week but due to a blunder over at Blizzard, it was extended. Me and Pigletoos ended up running Molten Core during the first week that it came out. We had prepped a good bit beforehand by doing dungeons, and I even got my Darkmoon Faire trinket made. The run was pretty smooth, and we had no wipes. Of course I didn't get the cosmetic enchant or the mini pet. I ended up buying my Hatespark the Tiny on a different server for a pretty decent deal considering the rarity of the little thing. I really wish that the drop rate for both things were a bit higher considering some of the long queue times I've heard people talking about.

Too soon!

Southshore vs. Tarren Mill was something I was more excited to participate in. I remember leveling up through Hillsbrad Foothills back in BC and always seeing world PvP going on around the area. It took me quite a while before Horde managed to push through and win a game. I actually won my match the day that Highmaul was released, so maybe all the really good Alliance players were raiding that night! Thinking about that makes me giggle. Anyway, while the throwback was fun, I don't think I'd like to do that over and over again. I'm sure there are some that would disagree with me.

This makes me think of a semi heated conversation I had last week with an online friend that used to play WoW. They were basically saying the game isn't like it was in BC, and that gear is super easy to come by, and when you killed a boss back then it actually meant something. Well, I didn't agree with them at all. Yes, the game is definitely not the same game as it was... even a year ago! It evolves and changes with every expansion. I also didn't really find gear was that difficult to come by even in BC. When I stepped into my first raid, I had a full Spellfire set with my other two pieces of Spellstrike. Sure it took me sometime to craft all of it, but doing cloth trades made it much easier. I eventually replaced things as I ran raids and collected badges of justice. Lastly, as for feeling that killing a boss isn't epic anymore, there is mythic raiding. I admire and respect the guilds who are clearing that place. I love seeing my Twitter friends getting excited on their boss kills. They worked hard for that and should be proud.

While events like this give us a tiny glimpse into the past, I personally think that the game is much better than it was back then. My only complaint with WoD right now is that garrisons can be quite tedious if you have a ton of alts, and I wish the Apexis daily gave a little rep with a faction on turn in. Sometimes it's better if we take off the rose colored glasses and look at the game how it's meant to be seen currently. It's nice to look back on the past and think about those feats we achieved, but we must move on and adapt with the new times. I think Garrosh said it best himself.

I haven't done any exploration recently, and I'm pretty ashamed of myself for not doing it. This was how my blog got started after all! Have no fear, I will be attempting to explore every area of Draenor that I can in the upcoming months. I want to carefully comb over each zone at a time, but I stumbled across this while treasure hunting in Talador, and I couldn't wait to talk about it. I love to fully explore a zone, and after finding a cute little Draenei couple having a picnic, I realized I didn't check what was on the uphill slope across from them. I'm also the type of person who is "click all the things!" so when I initially found this flower, I did just that. (Coordinates 37,91)

A small event played out before me, but I have no idea what really happened. An orc came out of the ground and gave a Burning Blademaster a flower. The Blademaster smells it, freaks out screaming "Please... no flowers...", and then gets assassinated. I was pretty sad I didn't take any screenshots since I was watching the events play out before my eyes, so when I quested there on my alt, it was one of the first places I went to.

I was shocked to see that this wasn't a treasure, and I received no item from looting it. I decided to do a little research. Supposedly it was a toy item in beta, but never made it to the live version of the game. It was called Mysterious Flower. Doing a bit more research on WoWpedia netted a few broken pages, but a little more information. It seems as though each zone was going to have a flower. My guess is that once the player found every flower in each zone, the toy would be rewarded to them. Regardless of everyone saying that the other flowers were not available in the other zones, I had to check for myself. Of course, everyone was right, but that still doesn't stop me from checking every once in a while!

Many have speculated this is a tribute to the Flowerpicker Clan, an easter egg from Warcraft II. The Orc assassin definitely fits by being dressed in blue. Here is a picture of the female counterpart.

Mysterious Orc

I'm guessing when the toy item was removed in live, they forgot to take out this flower. Things like this always bother the collector and adventurer in me. I always want it to be more - maybe it's a hidden item that no one has discovered. Sadly it's just usually something that's been overlooked. Hopefully one day this item makes it into the game for all of the toy collectors out there.

I can't believe I've had this blog for almost the entire time I've been playing WoW and haven't went into detail about what got me hooked on my favorite things to collect in game - mini pets! This post came to mind as I was preparing to clean up my WarcraftPet's profile. I figured it would be better to put this here since I have more room to talk about it.

I often like to ask people, what was the first mini pet you remember getting? I'm pretty positive mine were the Senegal and Cockatiel off of Narkk in Booty Bay. I clearly remember keeping one on me and placing the other in my bank. Not long after that I remember running Deadmines and getting the Green Wing Macaw to drop from there. I felt like a pirate!

I went on with my WoW life, still not completely hooked on collecting. I remember when the Azure Whelpling was released in patch 2.3 (The Zul'Aman patch). It was pretty highly sought after on my server at least. I had a friend who wanted it really bad. I used to fish in Azshara probably more than I'd like to admit, so I passed the blue dragonkins that dropped it quite often. Well one day when I was passing, I killed one, and it dropped. I was shocked and quite excited. This began my unhealthy obsession with collecting mini pets!

It's around this time that I made friends with another collector. He's now my oldest Warcraft friend, and we still talk to this day. I'm not sure what got him to start collecting, but we were always talking about who got what pet most recently, and what pet we were going for next. I clearly remember us both hunting for the Black Tabby off of the Ambermill Spellscribe. I'm not sure who got their's first, but I remember we both eventually got it. I also remember by the end of Burning Crusade we both had no more room in our banks/bags for anymore pets since they weren't a learned spell yet!

I also remember some of my more frustrating times. I used to kill so many pirates for the Hyacinth Macaw, but I never was lucky enough to get it to drop. I also used to spend hours upon hours in the Swamp of Sorrows farming for the Emerald Whelp. It was so bad that I remember a guildie asking me why in the world was I always there, hah. I have no regrets on any of this or the amount of gold I've probably spent on getting some of the rarer ones. The only regret I have is that I didn't start playing the game early enough to get a vanilla collectors edition!

I've also met so many wonderful people through the WarcraftPets community, and just in general from collecting pets. They start conversations, and I love it when I can gift unsuspecting people with a pet they don't have. I can't wait to see what's in store for mini pets, and as always, I'm looking forward to expanding my collection!

Please click for full view!

Since last year when I won a piece of art of Velgana, I fell in love with the idea of getting my character drawn. I made a promise to myself that each year I would try to get a new piece from a different artist. So towards the end of last year, I started the process of looking for which artist to pick. I have a bookmarks folder dedicated to some amazing artists that I would love to commission some day.

When I first saw Faebelina's art, I instantly fell in love. The thing that drew me to her style was her use of colors. Everything always looks so rich and vibrant! She also puts so much detail into her drawings and sketches that they come to life! I was thrilled to see that she was opening up commissions, so I jumped on board as soon as I could. Lucky for me I was able to get in an opening.

Originally I was just going to get Velgana drawn, but my boyfriend saw her art and decided he wanted to turn it into a couples portrait. Since we didn't get each other anything for our 9 year anniversary, this was the perfect gift. We've been playing WoW together for almost the same amount of time, and we have a lot of good memories with this game. We went with Nagrand as our background since we spent a good bit of time there in the Burning Crusade, and more recently ended up hanging around on the floating islands playing with all of the junk from the toy box.

While Fae is currently closed for commissions, please keep an eye out for her opening in the future. Also if you're planning on going to Blizzcon this year, may I suggest thinking about ordering a badge from her since she plans on doing those also. Below are some links where you can find out more about the wonderful art of Faebelina.

Twitch - http://www.twitch.tv/faebelina
Tumblr - http://faebelina.tumblr.com
Twitter - https://twitter.com/Faebelina

So me and Pigletoos are sitting around last night and chatting about a few things when he asks "how long has it been since you've written a blog post?" I check... it's been over a month! Quite frankly, I have nothing of any interest to talk about, so I guess I will catch everyone up on what's going in in Velgana's world.

Since 6.1 my gameplay has decreased dramatically. Usually I'm really excited to level up alts through the content again, and it's just not the case this time. I have other alts I've been leveling through older content, but by the time they hit level 90, I move on to the next one. This past weekend I finally did the Tanaan starting zone on my troll priest, so I'm slowly making progress with her... slowly. Sadly, Pigletoos didn't stick around, and he temporarily deactivated his subscription. He said he will come back before the end of the expansion. Sometimes a break is a great thing!

The good things to come out of 6.1... more junk to collect! One of the first things I did after the patch launched was fish my little heart out until I caught enough lunkers to buy the sea calf. I couldn't be happier with it, and it's currently always following me around! I wasn't one of the lucky ones to get the S.E.L.F.I.E. Camera right away, but the mission for it finally did pop up. I just got the extra lens for it that made it a toy, so now I can take advantage over making all my alts looks silly!

I've also been on the hunt for the Void Talon mount. I was pretty obsessed with it after someone on twitter mentioned it. I haven't been "camping" it like some people though. I'll have to dedicate some time to doing that soon. I've have been running old raids for mount. Still no Invincible yet, but I got Experiment 12-B. It's such a funky colored mount. I think it looks pretty decent with my tier 3, don't you think?

Now, the next thing I want to talk about involves the 6.1 legendary quest line. I will be talking about spoilers under the cut, so if you don't want to be spoiled, thank you for reading, and I'll see you again soon! If you've seen the spoiler cinematic and wish to continue, follow me this way.

I watched the cinematic, and I absolutely loved it. I love picking up on the most subtle expressions; especially when Gul'dan tells Grom that Garrosh was his son. There is this slight ease up of his tense eyes. It gives me goosebumps.

"and... what about your son..." by necrowithglasses on Tumblr

I usually put my faith in Blizzard's hands, but there is one thing that I don't think I can handle. I don't think I can be happy if they decide to bring Garrosh back as some kind of demonic creature that's been twisted by Gul'dan or the Burning Legion. I don't think it's necessary as I think he had the perfect ending in Nagrand. I will flip if this happens, and I'm really hoping it doesn't. It's still too soon to tell what will happen after Blackrock Foundry, but I'm hoping WoD is going to have a better ending than the intro it had.

Last year I was nominated for a Liebster Award and I was extremely grateful. I completely forgot about it until I got a notification on twitter that I was nominated again. This time it was from Fussypants over at Growing Up Azeroth!

"The Liebster Award is given to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. So, what is a Liebster? The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. Isn't that sweet? Blogging is about building a community and it's a great way to connect with other bloggers and help spread the word about newer bloggers/blogs." - via We Loved Here

While I do have more then 200 followers on Twitter, I definitely don't have that many subscribed to my blog. Most people read my posts once I link them there, and I'm extremely grateful for that. Last year I didn't add the 11 facts, so I won't do that again this year, but I will answer the questions. Bring them on!

Vel reading over the questions this year

1. In your opinion (not based on views), which article that you’ve written is your best?
I have two that I really like. I loved writing about the Blog Azeroth RP Intro blog topic. I told the backstory of Velgana. It's between that one and a post I did about the Dark Below speculation when that was an ongoing rumor.

2. You wake up in Azeroth as your main character. What do you do?
Oh goodness, I would probably port around to all the major cities and go shopping. After that I'd fly around on a dragon, looking at the gorgeous world!

3. What motivates you to write?
This is a tricky one. Recently I've been at a lost for things to write here, but I'm still writing RP things over on Tumblr. Sometimes I get inspiration from conversations on Twitter or something that I've found in game. Other times it's just random things that come to mind.

4. You can have one spell in real life that isn’t a mage spell. Which one do you pick?
This is a tricky one since I'm a mage, so let me think. I think stealth would be pretty nice. I could get out of awkward situations easily, and if I didn't want anyone to notice me I could blend in with my surroundings!

5. Best noob mistake?
Hmm, I don't think I've ever made a good noob mistake! Looking back, they have all been pretty bad. I think some of the better noob moments would have been when I just started the game, and I used to go heal dungeons with my lowbie priest; I was terrible but so was everyone else! I've met some great people while we were spending a long time looking for the rest of a group in trade, and chatting while trying to clear those dungeons that took forever.

6. If you could kill off one WoW character to bring back another WoW character, who would you kill and who would you bring back?
I would kill off Thrall, because since Cataclysm his character hasn't left a lasting impact on me, and I'm a bit upset about the direction his writing has gone. I would bring back Illidan for a redemption story ending with him and Malfurion recognizing each other as brothers again.

7. What was your first video game?
The first game I played was Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Me and my mom used to play together for hours. I have such great memories of that!

8. If a patch is released and no one is there to play it, do the forums QQ?
Yes! The forums are forever drowning in the QQ.

9. If you didn’t play video games, you’d be…
I have no idea, really. I've been playing video games since I was 2, so it's imprinted into my soul. Maybe I would be drawing and writing more. I'm really not sure though.

10. On a scale of 1-10, how much have you enjoyed WoD (1 being not at all and 10 being its the best thing since sliced bread)?
I'd say about a 6 or a 7. I am pretty disappointed in the expansion to be honest. I really liked leveling through the content, and seeing the old world, but now that I'm max level, there isn't anything I really want to do.

11. What’s the best thing about blogging?
I get to express my thoughts and feelings, and I get to be creative with storytelling. There is nothing better than having a cup of coffee in the morning and letting the words flow.

Now for my picks. I went through my blog roll, and I was sad to see that many people haven't wrote a post since last year. I picked out a few people who I follow on Twitter also, so hopefully this little poke might give them the motivation to start writing again!
- http://admiring-azeroth.blogspot.com/
- http://salvirashangout.blogspot.com/
- http://rinike.com/
And finally, I know this person is extremely busy with a new addition to the family, but I think they deserve a nomination:
- https://harpysnest.wordpress.com/

In fact, I'm tagging YOU in this too! Just because I didn't list your name up above, doesn't mean you cant participate! If you have a blog and want to answer these, post a link in the comments below. I'd love to read them!

1. How long have you been blogging?

2. If you could send some of your followers from your garrison to do some chores for you, what would you make them do?

3. How do you feel about the direction Warlords of Draenor is going?

4. If you could make anything into a mount for your character, what would you pick?

5. Post a picture of your favorite transmog set!

6. Out of all the Azerothian cuisine, what do you think you could sit down and eat?

7. What is your favorite thing to do in game?

8. What is your favorite WoW memory?

9. If you had to pick one, which battle pet would you like following you around in real life?

10. Are you loyal to one faction or do you play on both sides?

11. What other games have you been playing recently?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was looking into getting the Voidtalon of the Darkstar mount. I had honestly forgotten it even existed, but someone on Twitter mentioned it, and I became obsessed with it. At the time there were so many rumors going around about how to get it, but most of it was speculation. On February 27th, there was finally confirmation. Someone on Twitter posted a screenshot with the mount. To my knowledge, she was the first one with it, and she was kind enough to provide details on how she got it. Not long after, other accounts of people getting the mount started pouring in. I thought I would give my experience on getting the mount, and some tips to help you get it for your collection.

First off what you're looking for is a portal called Edge of Reality. Now I know the first image of a portal that comes to mind is probably a mage one, but it doesn't look like that. It looks more like a wispy purple-ish portal. I honestly think they are smaller versions of the wispy demon portals outside of Black Temple.

If no one is around to click the portal, it will eventually despawn and move to another location. I'm not sure how long the portals stay up in each area or how long it takes them to reappear in a new area. I'm also not sure on how long it takes for another portal to respawn after a player clicks on it. I'm seeing reports that range from 13 hours up to 48+ hours. Another wonderful thing is that once a player has the mount, they can never see the portals again. This is great and definitely cuts down on people trying to grief others trying to get it.

Edge of Reality portal

Next is location. There are several spawn points where these portals can pop up at. Someone over at Wowhead was kind enough to make a map of some approximate spawn locations. If you mouse-over the points, you will get a direct coordinate for each spawn. The portal I found (which isn't on that map) spawned in Gorgrond at 51,38. They are usually always around Apexis daily areas and almost never inside them. I think there is one or two that is an exception. I recommend downloading the Handy Notes addon so you can add each portal spawn to your map.

Once you click on the portal, you are queued up for a scenario called Edge of Reality; fitting enough, right? I don't think I've ever clicked on something so fast in my life, even though I was the only one around. Anyway, this is pretty cool since it's a sub-zone of the Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, and the same place you fight Ner'zhul.

Yes... step into the Void. (RIP little Raptor)

Once inside, there is a dead Void Talon and an egg. You click on the egg and you loot the mount. That's it! It's a little lackluster, but I think the pretty mount makes up for that.

If you do plan on camping this mount, my tips would be to look for the portals right after a server reset. I ended up parking my characters by a few of the areas. Gorgrond was where Vel was parked at, and she was the last character I checked. The portal happened to be up by The Pit area next to a little raptor (see above image for dead raptor). It was around 12:05 AM. I also recommend going to a place that has spawns close together that way you're not running around too far between each spawn location. Before you know it, this one will be added to your collection too! Good luck and happy hunting!

One of the most anticipated TV shows returned this past weekend with their 5th season - Game of Thrones. Since many of my friends and followers also watch the show, I thought it would be fun to try to incorporate Westeros into WoW. I decided that each week I will do a different transmog based off of the different houses. As always, I cater to cloth wearers, but if you wear leather, this one will be easier. So who did I decided to start off with?

House Greyjoy of Pyke is one of the Great Houses of Westeros. It rules over the Iron Islands, a harsh and bleak collection of forbidding islands off the west coast of Westeros, from the Seastone Chair in the castle of Pyke on the island of the same name. Their sigil is a golden kraken on a black field, and their house motto is "We Do Not Sow."(Westeros Wiki)

As a cloth wearer, I'm trying to imitate the look of leather. When you see the the Greyjoy's onscreen, they are usually wearing dark clothing. Their armor is worn and cloth is a little dull. Nothing is ever regal or over the top. That's the look I was going for.

Helm: Black Mageweave Headband

Shoulders: Flameseer Mantle

Cloak: Blackmetal Cape

Chest: Elemental Raiment

Gloves: Black Mageweave Gloves

Belt: Laughing Skull Waistguard

Boots: Netherweave Boots

Pants: Netherweave Pants

WoWHead Set Link

My belt is different in the pictures because I didn't have enough time to get the one I originally wanted. This was the only one I had that looked "decent". As always, I try to keep the transmogs to things that aren't ridiculously hard to get. If you can't find the chest piece I linked, you can use one that doesn't show when wearing the tabard and equip the Sightless Mantle as a shirt. If you don't have your own guild with the luxury of changing around your tabard, the transmog also looks nice on its own. I didn't include any weapons for this transmog, but plainer looking ones would work. If you need an off-hand, I would suggest going with the Eerie Stable Lantern.

For the screenshot, I looked for places that reminded me of the Iron Isles, and I think the coasts of Gilneas gave me the look I was aiming for. You can almost smell the salty air. Now all I'm missing is a ship and a crew!

See you all next week with a new transmog. I may be bringing flowers.

Most people left the Citadel as soon as the Lich King fell. She waited behind in the main hall until it was quiet again. In the corridors down below she searched for the stables. In there was a treasure more valuable to her than any armor, weapon, or gold. It was easy to spot amid the Deathchargers. There stood Invincible in his rusted and tattered Lordaeron armor.

She slowly walked up to the horse, hushing it as it bucked. The bond it shared with Arthas was undeniable, and it sensed his demise. "Shhhh..." She tried to calm the horse, but it cried and reared into the air. She removed a glove, revealing a shaking bony hand. She outstretched it to touch him through the cold stable gates. "Easy boy. It's alright. I... I'm just like you." The horse eased up as she touched her hand to his muzzle. She whispered, "I know exactly what it's like. We didn't deserve to be brought back, yet here we are. I promise I will take care of you. We will see the world you and I. Together I promise we will be invincible." She smiled.

Invincible is finally mine. Running ICC for the mount is over. I cried like a little baby when I saw it in the loot window. I'm going to miss seeing Arthas each week; I felt as though we had a bond. I will make sure to visit him every once in a while. I also have a fun story to go along with getting this mount. I'm a very organized person, so I tend to make lists for everything. I offered to make my niece a mount list of the dungeon and raid ones she was missing. I sent it to her on Tuesday, and she got the Zulian Panther and Blue Proto Drake to drop. We were laughing about it and saying that the list was good luck and I should go run ICC. Well, I'm glad I did. All hail the lucky list! Seriously though, Thank you to the RNG gods for allowing this beautiful mount to grace my collection.

I hope you are all excited for episode 2! I ended up waiting, and chose not to watched the leaked episodes online. Keeping up with the weekly tradition, we decided to travel to Highgarden.

Highgarden is an ancient seat of rule and the heart of chivalry in the Seven Kingdoms; the Tyrells style themselves 'Defenders of the Marches' and 'High Marshals of the Reach', and traditionally, they have been Wardens of the South. Their sigil is a golden rose on a green field, and their words are "Growing Strong."(Westeros Wiki)

This is one of my favorite house sigils. I love how in the TV show, it's always incorporated into the Tyrell's clothing. They always have small flowers embroidered into their gowns or adorning pieces of jewelry. Green and yellow is such a bright combination to work with, but I think that this came out pretty well.

Helm: Eye of Theradras
Shoulders: Mantle of the Timbermaw
Cloak: Cloak of Coordination
Chest: Bright Robe
Gloves: Heavy Woolen Gloves
Belt: Ruthless Gladiator's Cord of Accuracy
Boots: Soft-Soled Linen Boots
Off-Hand: Dreamseeker Dandelion
WoWHead Set Link

I've been having bad luck with belts recently. I was quite a good bit of honor points away from being able to but the belt, and I'm not one for PvP. I also had no luck getting it to drop from Occu'thar. That's why it's not present in the pictures! Also, the cloak in the set link is going to be blank since it takes the look of your guild banner. I also absolutely love the flower off-hands, and I don't think people transmog them enough! Next week we're going with something a little darker. Hopefully I can light afire under my butt to get the transmog done earlier in the week.

10 Years 10 Questions

The Best Things To Do In WoW

Transmog Time: Link from The Legend of Zelda

Birthdays and Warlords

Brawls For All

The Iron Tide

Blizzcon 2014 and Waiting for Warlords

Here's Poundfist!

Warlord Thoughts

The Icecrown Challenge

A Nod to the Past

Mysterious Talador Flower

Hooked on Mini Pets

Pigletoos and Velgana by Faebelina

Post 6.1 - What Am I Doing?

Liebster Award - 2015

Voidtalon of the Darkstar

Game of Transmogs - House Greyjoy

Invincible

Game of Transmogs - House Tyrell