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Sometimes Lists Are Scary
I’m a bit of a list maker. I like to know what I need or want to do. This has become a bit more of a habit since I have started to have a bad memory for these things. Getting older sucks. But sometimes… lists, they are scary. Sometimes having it all written down makes it hard to see what to do next. Sometimes it’s too much.
Case in point. I just made a list of everything I would do in WoW every day if I had no other responsibilities. It looks like this:
Sveala
- Inscription Research x2
- Living Steel Cooldown
Gurdrid
- Farm
Oquae
- Silk Cooldown
- DE collected greens
Shoryl
- JC Research
- Argent Tournament Dailies
Breige
- Magnificence Cooldown
- Klaxxi Dailies
- August Celestial Dailies
- Farm
- Scenario
- Instance
- LFR
- Farm Leather as needed
Mavgren
- Auctions
Kerridwen
- Farm Herbs/Ore as needed for cooldowns
Muirri
- Quest
And none of that includes Wednesday night Guild Randomness, or Thursday night Dwarven Dungeon Crawls. To be fair, I raid on most Tuesdays and frequently on weekends, and I can usually get more than one in on those days. Since Blizz has not implemented bonus Valor for raids at this point, it doesn’t matter so much when I do them at all. For Scenarios and Dungeons, though, getting bonus Valor definitely has its advantages. So if I could, I’d do at least one of those each day.
But a whole lot of those things, you say, take only a few minutes. (And really, all those profession things – most people don’t have all those professions). And that’s very true, the list in and of itself isn’t that bad. But the length of the list is what is daunting.
And here’s another thing that intrigues me. How many other games that people play do they make lists for? Really, playing a game is about fun. So, to make myself feel better about my list, which looks a vaguely like work, I thought I’d talk a little bit about why I do these things:
Inscription and JC Research: I don’t like paying for my glyphs and gems off the AH. Auction House purchases can keep you in the poor house, and I have things I’d like to purchase with my gold, like mounts! Also, the random process adds something to it: What will I learn today?
Silk and Magnificence Cooldowns: I find it fascinating to learn what I’ll discover, and also whether I get a silkworm. The items from the patterns have also been selling well.
Living Steel Cooldown: This is mostly for money, or, at the moment, for guildies. It’s also fun to see if I’m going to proc a second bar, though I have terrible luck with that when I’m trying to make it to do something with.
Farms: Gurdrid is currently farming motes, but will go back to farming for rep when she’s done making a couple of pieces of gear. Breige is strictly farming for rep right now. I find farming amusing and relaxing to do, so as an added method of getting things I want, it’s quite worthwhile.
Argent Tournament Dailies: This is literally a means to an end for me. I want the mounts from the Argent Tournament – some for the mounts themselves, but mostly because they’re an easy way for me to get to the next mount achievement, and the KITE!
The rest of Breige’s activities: Breige doesn’t strictly have to do the dailies. She could head over to the Isle of Thunder and jump in there. She’s got good enough gear to get into the next raid I haven’t seen yet, and really, the point of the gear is to get to the next raid for me, not the gear itself. But, I want the achievements that go with the dailies, so I’m doing the dailies.
Scenarios and dungeons are another thing that are a mix between fun and profit. I like doing them, and bonus valor and rep are always a plus. So I try to get them in on days that I want to do group content. I will always opt to do these with guildies first, given the choice. (And will often do many scenarios in a row with guildies, but only one or two with strangers)
Raiding is something I’ve missed for a long time. I haven’t raided since vanilla, and I wasn’t going to raid on a tank, so Gurdrid was out of the question. I decided on Breige to try and see if I’d like playing her because of Bear’s comments about his hunter, mostly. And I’m finding that I like ranged DPS more than I ever expected. Even more surprising is that having a pet doesn’t completely suck all the time. I have no idea whether I’m a good hunter or not, but I try, and I try to get better. And I like doing it.
Farming Leather, Ore, and Herbs as needed: This is really a support clause. If I want to do other things, I need these resources, and it’s generally cheaper to farm than it is to buy. So I opt for farming, mostly.
Auctions: I think this goes without saying. You make more money selling things on the AH than vendoring them, so Auctions it is.
Muirri: My little monk is closing in on 85 quickly. The monk playstyle isn’t one I would want to use as a main, but I am enjoying it. She’ll likely become my bank toon and hang out in Stormwind doing fishing and cooking dailies once she reaches 85 and nets the guild their achievement. But I almost always have one toon I’m actively questing on, for when endgame gets boring. It’s a great breakup of activities.
The nice thing that this list does, though, is reminds me why I do what I do. Why is important, particularly for the things that I don’t like doing in and of themselves (mostly, that’s the Argent Tournament dailies.)
Laid Back Dungeons: Guild Style
After two weeks of running my Wednesday night “event” as a guild night, we’ve had a group of four both nights. It’s about the most difficult group to go, too. We’re not too keen on PuGGing Mists dungeons, since none of us really know the fights (I know, research time for me.) 3 would be Scenarios, 5 would be, well, a 5-man, and 6 would break up into two scenario groups, which would make Skype highly entertaining, I’m sure. More than six and we start looking at raids with a serious eye.
But, we had four. Our first night, we tried to do Cata heroics with a Ret Paladin turned healer more or less for the evening. That didn’t turn out too well, though that might have been because we were trying to do Blackrock Caverns.
Last night, I asked the innocent question, “Do you guys want to try and do 10-man Obsidian Sanctum, I don’t have the Black Drake yet.” I didn’t know if we could, to be honest. I only know that four mediocrely geared level 85s struggled with 25-man. There was discussion about whether anyone else could roll on the mount, to which I said, “of course! And we can come back next week, to get more.” So off we went. And boom. Dead dragon. Mount reins to be rolled on. Jackoby passed, but Yawondergirl and Phink both rolled as well as, you know, me. The one with 128 mounts. And I won! Woohoo. We took a picture of our first little success, with everyone on their “spiffyest” mount.
Showing off the Newest Drake! (129)
Once we’d done that, I asked the others if they had their Red Protodrakes yet. Jackoby and Yawondergirl haven’t even started the acheivement, and Phink still had several to get, so… off we went to Coldarra to start putting a dent in those acheivements. We came out of the Nexus with a full round of completes, except Chaos Theory, which we stuffed up by killing Anomalus before he opened a chaos rift. Oops! At 90, getting Intense Cold is actually pretty easy – at least with four people. Up to The Oculus to start in on those achievements. We opted against taking Green drakes for our first run through, and we even picked up Make it Count on our first run through even though we weren’t even trying. Phink did fall off his Bronze Drake, so he’ll have to do that one again, but Jack and Yaw both picked up the tick-marks for their red drake riding skillz.
Once we were done there, it was back to Dragonblight to do Azjol Nerub, netting us a full clear of achievements there, and Anh’kahet: The Old Kingdom. I stuffed up remembering Volunteer Work until after one volunteer had been killed, but otherwise, we got another complete set.
Since it was getting late, we finished off the night with a run to Violet Hold – the first of what I’m sure are many, and ticked off Defenseless as well as Xevozz and Moragg tick marks for Lockdown!
Of course, with all those frozen orbs piling up at my feet, I collected enough to get mount # 130, as well…
Yes, that’s a Fury Warrior on a Flying Carpet. Whatcha Gonna Do ‘Bout It?
Random Laid Back Running
I’ve taken a couple of days of vacation – originally not for moving, though today has been lots of things toward that end.
However, I hopped online and saw a few of my favorite laid back folks on; and decided I might like a go at one of the old raids. I put the call out, and Tumunzahar answered it without hesitation, requesting Blackwing Lair. With a little coaxing, we also got Flagsworth (on his rogue Duenan) and my long time friend from my vanilla days of raiding, Farron.
Sadly, the rogue wasn’t attuned, so he went and burned through UBRS while the rest of us tackled Razorgore. Talk about easy-peezy with the nerfs to the mechanics. We also got the Unscathed Egg from Razorgore, which I won! There was also an ingot that dropped, so Gurdrid is a tiny bit further on her way toward making the Hand of Ragnaros for Shoryl.
Unfortunately, Tum had to depart right after we defeated Vaelestrasz; but Farron, Duenan and I finished with relative ease. No more pets dropped; and Duenan complained about the utter lack of rogue gear.
Fun was certainly had; and Tum reminded me to poke Farron to come along on Laid Back Raids in the future, which I will most certainly do!
The Light, the Dark, and Lady Vashj
Laid Back
Laid Back Dungeons ended up being a laid back raid instead last week. I wasn’t in the mood for current content; and am looking for only a few more pieces for my sword set for Gurdrid. Since she’s carrying a sword right now, it seems to be a good one to work on.
So Tyledres and Gurdrid stormed Serpentshrine Cavern. Hydross went down with almost no sploosh. The Lurker Below was dead fish pretty easily. Leotheras the Blind became Leotheras the dead. And then there was Fathom-Lord Karathas. Who killed Gurdrid, but not Tyledres. Much like the last time I was in SSC, where the raid killed him, but the tank died. After the Fathom-Lord, Morogrim Tidewalker was a walk in the pond. I don’t think we really needed to clear out his murloc minions first.
We were then at Lady Vashj, who has an annoying mechanic in phase two, where you have to pick things up off of mobs that have to be killed really fast. But we were one-shotting mobs, shouldn’t be a problem, right? Until the fear-masters (Coilfang Striders) came along and feared us all over the place. We attempted twice, the second time trying to ignore one side of the room so that we could get to the tainted cores faster; to no avail. Lady Vashj may have won, but next time I’m bringing a shadow priest with me.
Site Update
I think the site update is pretty well completed. Widgets are in, and I’m pretty happy. I have a page to write for the guild; but otherwise, I’m pretty satisfied with my new look. The blog name got shortened because of spacing issues. Now that little grey bar makes so much more sense. Also, the subtitle is more readable.
I’ll be trying to continue to work on my blogroll. I added both the Amateur and the Godmother to the page this evening.
I know I haven’t been the best at blogging recently; this is due in varying degrees to the site redesign; being at once too busy and not busy enough at work (it’s odd, I know); and an utter and complete adoration of Mists of Pandaria – so much so that I want to be playing, not writing. Also, there’s laziness and procrastination.
Friends, Dungeons, and Drakes (oh my!)
Last night’s LBD started with three of us: Tyledres, Magik and myself. Since finishing off the Occulus for me, Tyledres and I have been making regular trips to Violet Hold, and never managed to see Hydross. This time, however, we were rewarded with the boss at the first opportunity. Quite exciting! We’d decided beforehand that Magik was going to handle the crystals, since he’s a caster and all. We kibitzed a bit about when to hit them, and decided on right after Hydross splits. Magik was pretty nervous he was going to stuff it up, as the Frostwolves would say; but he didn’t, and Gurdrid got Dehydration, and her protodrake.
Gurdrid’s a Hero!
When we were done, Flagsworth joined us. I could tease Magik and say that he brought his buddy along so he wouldn’t feel like we were hunting down more achievements just for him, or maybe it was just a guildie having fun, inviting his friend along. (At this point, I need to mention that it’s all JD’s fault I know these guys.)
We headed next to Gundrak to attempt to get Less-Rabi for both Magik and Flags. Having failed it the last time Magik was along for an LBD, we wanted to make sure we got it right, so we handed out interrupt assignments. I mentioned that I was going to open with a 3-second silence. I think he was dead in two. At most 4. Anyway, 3 90s and an 89 make short work of that one. Flagsworth mentioned in passing it was too bad we only had four, because he needed Share the Love; but Jelexie was on, and said she’d come to help with that one. So we summoned her when we got to Gal’Darah. And I went and stood on him. We were terrified, since this is such a random achievement, that even white damaging at 90 would cause a miss; so no one did any damage until Jelexie finally got impaled (tip: if the tank doesn’t start tanking until after they get impaled, it goes a lot faster.) I started to just taunt him as soon as I got impaled.
As Jelexie headed out, Magik thanked her, calling her “Jex”. Which she likes, so is therefore her new nickname. 
After that one, we headed to Halls of Stone to pick up Abuse the Ooze – again for both Flagsworth and Magik. Strategy was explained, and implemented with perfection. Someone also picked up Brann Spanking New while we were in the Halls… I thought it was Flagsworth, but apparently not (according to the Armory). Sjonnir also dropped his belt for one of my sets.
Magik only had one achievement left, so we headed to Utgarde Pinnacle for a try at The Incredible Hulk. We were a little more nervous about this one, but once again, taunt tanking won the day. We also put a shot in on Skadi, to see if we could get the mount to drop, but alas, we didn’t.
Fancy Drakes
And here’s the four of us: Tyledres and Flagsworth in the back on their Violet Protodrakes, and Magik and me in front on our new Red Protodrakes.
That’s not all for Wrath, though. Should anyone come along who’s still looking to pick up their protodrake, we’ll head back out. If everyone has one, though, we’ll start in on Cataclysm dungeons. So far we’re not quite well geared enough to take on the heroics, but I’m sure with some time, and some upgrades, we’ll get there. (We could totally do it with a healer. Just sayin’.)
Stopping to Smell the Apple Blossoms
This past weekend, Gurdrid finished her headlong run to 90. It was as enjoyable as were the high points of her headlong run to 85. It took me around 12 days to do. Clearly, she did not spend a whole lot of time smelling apple blossoms, though she did quite a bit of removing the iron problem from the farmland in the Valley of Four Winds. I’m sure the farmers are quite pleased by that, though the iron does seem to crop up again and again, just like the particularly bad weeds.
At launch, however, I wasn’t on Gurdrid. I was on Shoryl. And by her side was her dearest Sonaira. We went through the trouble that was figuring out the stupidity of not being able to see to aim to destroy boats, and in each little hamlet of safety we came to, we stopped. We talked to everyone. We explored every nook and cranny. We probably drank quite a lot of beer with the locals. We looked out across the land over the bridges, from the verandas of buildings, from atop cliffs.
We did some more of that yesterday. We might have gotten a grand total of 10 quests done in our hour or so of play. But that’s because we stopped and looked at art in the arboretum, and played with baby cloud serpents, and visited the mining community of Green…someplace; who seem to have an infestation of tricksters. I’m sure at some point they’ll ask us to help with that problem, but maybe they don’t yet trust these very skinny (though very strong) women, who still ride on the roads and aren’t as boisterous as those who came before.
We made it up to Tian Monestary, but are currently sort of lost. I’m sure we’ll sort it out. In the meantime we’ve visited several trainers, and discovered a lovely inn that has a bath! Can you believe it? We had to go to an entirely new continent to be able to clean up in something other than a lake on the outskirts of town?
Shoryl is totally retiring here. Seriously.
Kerridwen has been leveling via a combination of mining, herbalism and archaeology. She got the Spear of Xuen as her second or third artifact; which significantly changed her chances against the beasties she’s run across in the Jade Forest. She also heard about the Tillers from Gurdrid, and headed right over there to start up her farm. She happens to be quite the cook, and is enjoying learning all the nifty things from the various masters in the market there; as well as saving up to feed people!
First Impressions
You may have gathered from my last post that I think Pandaria is gorgeous. I still do. I’ve already taken more screen shots of the world than I have in any previous content. Ok, so part of that is because I’ve only recently started taking screen shots at all. But still.
The World
I am so instantly immersed in the world; even starting with Varian’s anger at his son disappearing. I’m even pleased that Captian Taylor got promoted. He was a pretty good chap in Vashj’ir. The lead in; that includes an Admiral who has it in for the Horde for what they did to Southshore; and the moments that include payback, as it were, for Theramore are important to get me riled for the war. And then there’s the beauty of the world. It’s so enjoyable.
Questing
We did have a bit of trouble initially with the mechanics of aerial combat and too many people being around, so Taoiseach and Ardrhian went about their start.
Garrosh is not making friends among his elite. Where Varian is sending in a crack unit, Garrosh is making you part of his war machine. And worse, Garrosh’s plans involve conquering the new continent, even though he has no clue what’s there. Varian… wants to find his son.
I haven’t gotten much past learning Anduin’s fate on the Alliance side, either on Shoryl or on Gurdrid; but the story is unique. The Alliance are complimented for precision. And hey, we did a nice little quest hub and picked up another exalted reputation – sadly it’s not one that counts towards United Nations.
But I look forward to questing – something that wasn’t so true in the last two expansions.
Dungeons
I went and ran a random dungeon on Gurdrid last night, and got Stormstout Brewery. It was mayhem, which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense. Sadly, people still seem to think you know your way around and what the trash does even if you say at the beginning you’ve never been there. The people I was with made it a lot less enjoyable than I would have preferred.
The insides of the dungeons do look interesting, though. I actually spent a little bit of time looking around after I was done with my dungeon – at least in the safety of the last boss’s room.
Pet Battles
My weekday mornings have been taken up with pet battling. I have collected 9 rares, and defeated a few of the pet battle masters. I’m leveling three pets I plan to cage and sell. I’m thinking about level 10 or so. These are all pets that I have multiples of, so I’m hoping I can get at least a little bit out of them. I really need to start reviewing the AH to see what levels I want to target for various pets.
After I pick up all appropriate pet count achievements, all the snakes and most of the bugs are going to go. If I have to buy or catch them again, so be it; but I don’t want to keep having to scroll through them. Or look at the stupid Adder every time I open my pet window for the first time.
In Summary
I’m enjoying Pandaria. I’m enjoying Pet Battles. I’m enjoying inflated AH prices. I’m hording my money, and really need to get Shoryl started on her all important quest to sell jewelled panthers to people who have too much gold.
Miscellania
I wanted to take a moment to make a few comments before Mists releases on Tuesday (squee!!!), my busy weekend, and, y’know, stuffs.
Of Lists and Goals
I’ve posted as I’ve completed my goals before, but this time, it’s to say that I may not make my final goal. That was to get Mining to 525 (or at least 500) on Kerridwen, having switched alchemy over to Sveala. She’s gotten to 450, but the busy-ness of the weekend makes me unsure whether I’ll get those last points. Mining in current content on a toon I don’t much care to play is kinda hard. The combined zones don’t help matters, either. So we’ll see. It is, after all, only 50 points.
I’m pretty proud of myself, though. I got two toons maxed, and four professions to at least 500…
Laid Back Dungeons
I plan to continue the LBD runs on Wednesdays. This Wednesday ( Sept 26) I’m hoping that more people on will mean a shot at finishing up my Glory of the Hero achievement. Of course, it does require a certain water elemental to show his ugly mug. I’d like at least a threesome for trying to use a bronze drake mount – even at 85 (87?) the drakes just can’t withstand the barrage as well as I’d like. Call me cautious. But, if there’s only two of us, we’ll totally try anyhow.
Once that’s done, we may start doing Cata heroics for those interested. It’ll all depend on who’s there and what we’d like to do/get. Gurdrid has some clothes to get from a few Cata normals, as well – though I’m hoping once I hit 90 I’ll be able to solo those.
A New-ish Blog
Tyledres went and created a blog, pinged back to me here, and I totally missed it. I found it when I looked back at my logs, but I was a little bit surprised! Anyway, go check out Frost and Claws. I’m glad we’ve been here to support her challenging herself to stop worrying and start doing… Now I just need to figure out blogger’s comment system so I can comment already!
(Also, now I’ll have a clue which toon she’s on, so I can actually properly name them in the LBD runs!)
Carefully Then Quickly
Last night, Tyledres (on her mage) and I were back at the Laid Back Dungeons, and got Gurdrid down to only needing two more for the Red Drake, for which I’m very excited.
We successfully completed Zombiefest, even though I died once on trash before the first boss. I’m not sure what happened there, because I was fine, and then I wasn’t. Her mage picked up both Zombiefest and the heroic Culling of Stratholme achievements; which was a nice bonus.
Then we headed into the Oculus, where we swapped positions from our previous run and she rode the green drake while I rode the red (I needed red marked off for Experienced Drake Rider). That looked at first like it was going to go off without a hitch, then an odd bug had Tyl stuck on a platform, her mount unable to move, and her unable to find the dismount button. She logged out and back in, and it fixed the problem; but I was pretty sure at that point we weren’t going to make the speed run (which we were only half-heartedly working on). I wasn’t sure only two of us would have the firepower to get Eregos down quickly, because really, it’s still a little bit challenging, even if you can kill him once you’re on your feet. We did, however, have a flawless kill, and much to my surprise, picked up Make It Count.
So Gurdrid is down to just two achievements to go, one of which is completing Experienced Drake Rider by riding a bronze drake; and the other is Dehydrated. I fear the last is going to be my bane. To be honest, I’d love it if we could pick up a few more regulars to the runs. Having more than two of us will both speed up the runs, and make it easier to have one of us on a bronze drake in Oculus.
Gurdrid also picked up some alternate (much more boring) shoulders for her Dragon Sword set – she still wants Hydross to drop his shoulders, because they’re significantly better.
