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A Tale of Five Panthers
It all started out innocently enough, as these things often do. A new expansion. New mounts to be had. And then, I saw them. Panthers. Glistening panthers made of jewels. Shoryl had to have these for her collection. Not just one, oh no, but all five! And so our story begins. Shoryl reached level 90 a bit later than I had anticipated, after both Gurdrid and Breige.
She set out immediately upon reaching that height to acquire the favor of the Cloud Serpent trainers, even though the Serpents themselves were old news, as it were. After a few days of toiling for them, she had the patterns in hand. She knew the key – the Orb of Mystery. She also knew the other things that would create the structure. The gems she would need to acquire, the ore that would need to be smelted and transformed. She called a meeting of key members of the guild: Gurdrid, who could collect and smelt the ores. Sveala, who could perform the transmutations required. Breige, who would lead the active acquisition of funds, and Oquae, who had a goldmine in her ability to make adventuring packs. Even Muirri, who had stayed in Ironforge to do the Guild’s business, was asked to assist, selling those things of interest that were acquired.
Gurdrid set out at once, gathering a great deal of ore. When it wasn’t in need of smelting for Sveala, all of the ore went to Shoryl to be prospected for gems. So much raw material came in, it was impossible to count it all. She toiled relentlessly. Hundreds of crates of ore were sent to Shoryl, until she had acquired 40 of each type of gem: Wild Jade, Sun’s Radiance, Primordial Ruby, and River’s Heart.
All the while, Gurdrid smelted trillium when she could, and ghost iron whenever there wasn’t enough trillium. Sveala took these bars and transformed them into living steel. Had it all been created from ghost iron, the steel alone would have required 3,840 chunks of ore. Even when the steel needed for the panthers was completed, bars were still sent her way to be transformed and sold. Orbs of Mystery are quite difficult to acquire, and thus are exceptionally expensive.
During this time, Breige showed great initiative in going out into the world to find rare things to sell and performing tasks for the peaceloving Pandaren as an adventurer for hire.
In doing so, she brought in necessary resources – especially by befriending the farming community of Halfhill, and in particular Farmer Yoon. He allowed her to grow amazing plants that could pull ore right from the ground, or catch the slightest tuft of wool from the air. With the sheep she acquired from befriending Chee Chee, there was always plenty of wool to be gathered.
Ore, of course, went to either Gurdrid to be smelted, or directly to Shoryl for prospecting.
The wool went directly to Oquae, who also toiled for Farmer Yoon, planting the enchanting Songbells, and harvesting from them the curious motes of harmony. With these, and the wool, she created Imperial Silk at the nearby fields, and in turn, she made Royal Satchels, which fetch a high price at auction. The bags, and the occasional silkworm or moth, were sent to Muirri, who had an excellent working relationship with several auctioneers throughout Alliance territories.
Muirri, of course, sold the extra steel, the satchels, and any other interesting things the others could find. She kept careful watch over the funds acquired, and when there was enough, would send it to Shoryl.
Shoryl had found a goblin with a ready supply of the orbs of mystery, but he wouldn’t let them go lightly. She was pleased, however, that he wasn’t aligned with the Horde, and was willing to do business with her, regardless of the high price he charged. Still, in a demand market, the sole supplier of an item is sure to have excellent profits. So she was stuck.
The trick to the Jeweled Onyx Panther, of course, wasn’t as simple as the others. It required that the jewelcrafter first create one of each of the previously crafted panthers, and then fuse them together artfully. The resulting mount, however, is definitely a sight to see!
When all was said and done, Shoryl once again called together her team. She congratulated them all on the hard work they had done, and how selflessly they had given of their time and skill. Muirri provided the record of funds earned for the incredible number of 8 orbs required to get all five panthers, a total of 144,000 gold. In addition, Sveala created 32 bars of Living Steel, all of which came from ore smelted by Gurdrid. Shoryl herself provided the gems, though mostly through ore mined by Gurdrid or farmed by Breige.
After all that, the Grand Expedition Yak doesn’t seem so expensive, does it?
As These Things Go
It’s been a quite a while since I blogged, and then only briefly to apologize because exciting life events had been taking much of my time. During that time, my WoW life has consisted of a little bit of farming, the weekly guild runs, and some puttering about. Nothing post-worthy, so I didn’t post.
A quick stop in Stormwind to take a picture with their early mentor
I am now a happily married woman, and since I promised someone I’d actually post about it, here’s the short and sweet. My dearest and I were married by a friend of my sister’s in a lovely park near our home. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect – the high for the day was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and we had vivid blue skies and coloring-book style clouds floating past. The humidity was also quite low for the day.
In attendance were our two witnesses, my sister and father, and a few additional friends. After the ceremony, we went to one of our favorite restaurant/bars, and had a happy hour with a group of primarily co-workers. We ordered a whole chocolate cake from the restaurant’s renowned bakery, and had it not been for Sona’s Man of Honor, we would have had exactly one slice left at the end of the evening. Since we had to work on the 2nd, we made an early night of it.
But, back to WoW…
Shoryl and Sonaira finally made it to level 90. Shoryl immediately set off to join the Order of the Cloud Serpents – unsurprising given her father’s stables. Her aim, though, was not the cloud serpents themselves. It was a certain magic that they have for bringing gems to life.
Between her natural tendency for diplomacy, a letter of recommendation from Briege, her guild’s overall reputable nature, and a few lucky finds of Onyx dragon eggs, it took a matter of days for her to convince the quartermaster to give her the scrolls from which she could learn the secrets she desired. While Jackoby had been quite kind – pleased, even – to make the basic mounts for her, she was looking forward to making the penultimate Jeweled Onyx Panther herself.
Spoiled for Choice
Now that I have 4 level 90 toons, though, I am discovering a new difficulty to the World of Choices that is the current expansion. I’m going to talk about that in another post, though.
The guild runs on Wednesday night continue to be a high point in our activity – right now we’re working on the two raiding with leashes achievements. We hit one or two raids each week, and cycle through. A couple of the pets have already been obtained by all of us, while others we haven’t even seen drop yet. We’re adding in the raids from vanilla and BC that don’t include pets for the purposes of switching it up a bit, as well.
I’m getting back ‘round to LFR raiding as well and I’m debating whether I’m going to try to actually complete the Legendary quest line. It’s hard to consider it because I’ve never been able to understand PvP, but there are achievements, mounts, and pets to be had inPvP as well, so it’s probably a worthwhile endeavor to get into anyhow.
I also decided to make another attempt at leveling a horde character, and to this end, I’ve found myself a spot in a certain well-known guild. Shoryl the Tauren has crossed the level 20 threshold, and is making slow but steady progress – mostly on weekend mornings when the late-night Frostwolves are awake. (a 15-hour time difference from the server to my real time zone is pretty wild.)
Outside Azeroth
I’ve shared with several of you over the past 48 hours, but I haven’t seen everyone online to share. Yesterday, Minnesota officially became the 12th state to legally recognize same-sex marriages.
That means that Sona and I are getting married on August 1st of this year. While we will not be having an in-game wedding (I’ve got things to plan outside Azeroth, and a mere 10 weeks to do it in); we will likely be having an in-game something to commemorate the event. I’ll certainly keep you all posted.
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.)
An Excuse to Post Pictures
I do, honestly, take screen shots. Not very many, but still some. And IntPiPoMo seems as good an excuse as any to post them all! Not to mention, it might get me back into the swing of some regular posting.
I’m going to count yesterday’s two screenshots as my first two, since today is the second, and well, y’know how it goes… surely that’s a sign I ought to have done so yesterday, even though I didn’t know about it until today.
Here’s a shot I took when Sona and Shoryl were hanging out in Halfhill. Apparently, Shoryl’s black lamb is afraid of Nuts. (Do you blame him?)
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.
Short and Sweet
OMG Pandaria is PRETTY!!!
Shoryl went out with Sona right out of the gate, and it says a great deal that we both played for the majority of Tuesday. We had anticipated we’d get started, Sona would want to get away from her computer, and I would move on to Gurdrid, who would then blow ahead. Not so much. Sona wanted to play, so we played together. I’m very pleased.
When Sona was taking breif breaks, I hopped on Breige to check out pet battling. While I’d been interested in the pet capturing aspect of it, I wasn’t so keen on the battles prior to trying them. It’s so very 8-bit! (Just listen). I love it!
Laid Back Dungeons will not be happening tonight. I have real life things to do that didn’t get done during the WoWathon yesterday. We’ll be back at it soon, though, I promise!
Of Lists and Schedules
I’m a list maker. Sometimes I make them in my head, sometimes I build fancy spreadsheets, and sometimes you get to see them as they come forth from my brain. My lists are sometimes lists of dates, like the updated Laid Back Dungeons page, which now has August’s “schedule” on it. Really, it’s more of a list, with some dates that will be adjusted based on how many runs we get through each week. After all, I initially expected 2-3 dungeons, not 3-4, which is what we’ve been managing.
But I have other lists, too. There’s my bucket list, which is now nearly finished. Gurdrid has completed our Tol Barad goals, setting herself up to smoothly leap into Mists. While I’ll be working on Glory of the Hero for her via the Laid Back Dungeons, her only other goals involve transmogrification. We’ll get to that in a moment. Oquae will be making a trip to the Darkmoon Faire, along with everyone else, to complete the profession dailies. I’m holding off on that with Sveala until the end of the week, because she’s level 74 now, and will actually benefit as soon as she rolls over to 75, and can get into working on her scribbling again.
Then there’s Gurdrid’s mog list. She has three sets all designed, which she wants to get completed. They are her sword, axe and mace sets – in green, blue and red respectively. I’m teasingly calling her the RGB tank. List-wise, she needs to visit a total of 8 raids and 7 dungeons to complete all of the sets. I’ve posted her green set, for which she already has the sword.
You’ll see her blue set after the after the mog olympics, as I used it as a part of the competition. There’s a story there, but I’ll be waiting for the post. Surprisingly, that one’s the most complete, with Axe, Shield and belt already acquired.
The red set was just finalized this morning, and I’ll be posting it sometime later this week, in all likelihood. This set is to replace the Dark Iron set you’ve been seeing her in. That one is the most likely going to be the last set I complete, mostly because it uses more Cataclysm pieces than any of the others.
With Gurdrid’s outfits completed, there are other toons clamoring for gear. Two more toons have Mogolympic fever, wanting sets I designed either for their class or on them (and therefore class appropriate)! Oquae is getting noisy about wanting her spikey set; and Shoryl is defying all expectations and requesting an update. She expects to be getting a bit dirty when the Mists part, and the Lawbringer set requires just too much polishing. She thinks something more gold and less silver is in order. Sveala has kept quiet, but she’s probably waiting until she has the clout to bring it up. I’m not mentioning to her that Sruith has a set already designedI (by Cymre), and I’ll be designing for my Monk as soon as Mogit has a live update, so that I can use quest rewards as desired.
Tiny WoW Guild 