Posted in Achievements, Horde, Kamalia, Questing, Screenshots, Silly on March 19, 2013 | 6 Comments »
Yesterday, I became Revered with the Black Prince (I still have to gain 1.5K Valor for his other Test).
Today, I finally completed the Dominance Offensive Campaign.
Tomorrow, I start exploring the Isle of Thunder.
Because this is a very screenshot-heavy post, I’ve put the rest of it behind a cut: (more…)
Posted in Alts, Fashion, Prompts, Screenshots on March 3, 2013 | 5 Comments »
Huzzah, I am finally completing the Through Your Interface blogging challenge!
I found this prompt from Saz to be surprisingly difficult:
12. Inspiring Imagery
Show us something that inspires you within World of Warcraft. This can be a character, a person, scenery that leaves you in awe, or whatever it is that strikes a chord in you. The inspiration it creates can be anything as well: Has this character inspired you to roll a certain class? Does a certain zone make you long to write a story about your character adventuring through that particular area?
After nearly two years of looking at this prompt, not quite knowing what angle to approach it from, and putting it away again, at last I had a brainwave:
What do I write about most frequently here on the blog? What subject fills the most pages of my pencil-and-paper WoW notebooks?
Well, that’s easy — clothing!
I enjoy dressing my characters well, whether it’s a “recipe set” that really, truly looks great “as-is”, a new and unique appearance that I’ve designed myself by combining items from many sources, or an outfit idea that I’ve borrowed from someone else. My alts tend to experience leveling “growth spurts” when I get bored of what they have been wearing and want to make them new outfits using items that require a higher character level to wear or must be obtained by questing, or both.
With very good reason, Transmogrification is widely lauded as one of the best additions to WoW in the past few years.
This newcomer to the Azeroth fashion scene has been making quite a splash, too.
But because the Filigreed shirts and doublets that Karandonna sells really inspired my budding WoW fashionista sense, no place in Azeroth epitomizes my love of WoW clothing quite so well as the Threads of Fate in Dalaran.
Through Your Interface
1. Favorite Hangout
2. Player Housing
3. Representing You
4. Greatest Accomplishment
5. Title of Choice
6. Favorite Line of Poetry/Lyric
7. Screenshot of the Year
8. Vacation Spot
9. Your Character’s Hometown
10. Your WoW Crew
11. Profession of Choice
12. Inspiring Imagery
13. A Fond Memory
14. Place Swap
15. A Fairy-Tale Image
Posted in Achievements, Kamalia, Questing, Real Life, Screenshots on March 1, 2013 | 4 Comments »
Only a few days after my last update on Kamalia’s progress (or lack thereof), I finally defeated the last challenger at the Cradle of Chi-Ji.
Poor Ellia Ravenmane! I felt rather bad about having inadvertently played the part of recurring villain in her personal tragedy. I wish there could have been some way to truly save her.
During my first three weeks of running Wrathion’s Valor Point hamster wheel, I chose which faction(s) to do dailies for based on which one(s) I was furthest behind with. By this method, I got them to all be even with each other.
Yesterday, Kamalia had a very busy day indeed:
Now I can sail across Pandaria’s skies in true Pandaren style!
Yesterday’s questing put me just over the 4K Valor Points mark. Those last 2K Valor Points will come rather slowly, I fear. I’m only at 8/12 plot points of the Landfall storyline, so I still have several days of Dominance Offensive quests to do before I’ll be ready to start on the 5.2 isle o’ dailies. But I will have less motivation to do dailies for factions other than the Dominance Offensive now that I’ve finally gotten to Exalted with all the 5.0 factions. I stopped running heroics after I got Exalted with the Huojin Pandaren and the Bilgewater Cartel. I stopped running LFR after I got all the things I wanted from T14 — though I suppose I will start running T15 LFR as soon as it becomes available (will that be next week, or will LFR be delayed by a week from the opening of normal raids, as it has been in the past?).
My desire to do anything at all that rewards Valor Points is also being sapped by the amount of afternoon, evening, and weekend time that I now find myself spending on lecture prep. Some days, I can only muster enough energy for WoW to tend my gardens and scan the AH for the items on my Transmogrification shopping list. I love my job, though, and I am still so thrilled to have this opportunity to be doing exactly what I kept telling everyone I wanted to do with my career during my years of graduate school — Wrathion, you can go jump in a lake!
Posted in Prompts, Screenshots on February 5, 2013 | 2 Comments »
In this installment of Through Your Interface, Saz wonders:
14. Place Swap
If you could be any of your characters, who would you be and why?
I think I’d enjoy being quite a few of my characters, just for a day. I’ve written previously in this series about how Kaelinda is essentially an idealized, fantasy version of myself and how Kamalia is also a greater projection of myself than some of my other characters. So I might choose to be one of them. Or perhaps I’d choose to be my cute little redheaded Dwarf Shaman, Kjerstin. Kjerstin, perhaps, might be enough familiar to be comfortable and enough different to be enjoyable. I think I’d be more of a Wildhammer Dwarf than a Dark Iron or Bronzebeard Dwarf, though — I’d rather be on the mountain than in the mountain.
But would any of them enjoy being me?
Through Your Interface
1. Favorite Hangout
2. Player Housing
3. Representing You
4. Greatest Accomplishment
5. Title of Choice
6. Favorite Line of Poetry/Lyric
7. Screenshot of the Year
8. Vacation Spot
9. Your Character’s Hometown
10. Your WoW Crew
11. Profession of Choice
12. Inspiring Imagery
13. A Fond Memory
14. Place Swap
15. A Fairy-Tale Image
Posted in Achievements, Kamalia, Questing, Raiding, Screenshots on January 17, 2013 | 2 Comments »
Three and a half months ago, Kamalia met with Wrathion for the first time.
(My screenshots of this event are datestamped 1 October.)
Last week, I finished collecting Sigils of Power and Wisdom. This week, I obtained the Sha of Fear’s dark heart.
I already had the appropriate sha-touched weapon for my specialization, and now I have the gem to go with it. I have four pieces of Tier 14 for my Resto set. My overall ilevel is 482 — sufficient to get into LFR for the first wing of the Palace of the Thunder King. I am, therefore, DONE with LFR for this tier. (Well, with Kamalia, at least. Kregga’s been making noises about wanting that gorgeous starry sword from Elegon.)
Now I guess it’s time to go see what the Dominance Offensive is all about.
Posted in Achievements, Professions, Questing, Screenshots on January 8, 2013 | 11 Comments »
Bored of gardening, Ketura returned to Northrend to contend for a bear. Once she’d brought Thorim back to his senses, she went on to improve her reputation with the Horde Expedition by helping out the Taunka. She began by investigating some temporal disturbances in the vicinity of Camp Tunka’lo, and, having just been to Throne of the Four Winds with LBR last night, I found myself wondering if The North Wind had been updated to appear as Nezir (alas, that has not been done — but it should be!). Afterwards, she went to help some of the other Taunka villages.
Having achieved this measure of factional esteem, Ketura could finally accomplish a long-delayed milestone of technical proficiency in her chosen craft. I had enough of the necessary materials already on hand that it didn’t take long to collect the rest of them.
Thanks to the wonders of account-wide mounts, my Alliance chicks can now enjoy the Mekgineer’s Chopper, too!
Now I need to acquire some gnarly biker duds….
Posted in Miscellany, Screenshots on December 11, 2012 | 4 Comments »
I’m rather fond of books by Diane Duane. I read and enjoyed the first three or four books in her Young Wizards series (beginning with So You Want to be a Wizard) when I was in high school. She’s one of my favorite authors of Star Trek novels; I particularly like her development of the Rihannsu (that’s the Romulans’ name for themselves). So when I saw a new novel by Diane Duane when I was at the library a few weeks ago, naturally I picked it up!
This new novel, Omnitopia Dawn, has a most intriguing premise — one that I probably would not have found nearly so intriguing, or understood nearly so well, if I were not a WoW player.
It’s summer of 2015, and the most successful game company on the planet is counting down to the launch of the newest expansion for their incredibly popular MMO game world. The four main threads of the plot follow an ordinary player of “the Great Game” (he’s a healer!); the founder, head, and “First Player” of the game company (named “Dev” — no, really); a reporter come to the game company’s business campus determined to dig up some dirt; and the hackers and their backers who are trying to not only ruin the launch of the new expansion, but also totally destroy the game company. One of these hacker-backers is the head of a rival game company… who is also a former business partner and ex-friend of Dev.
The “real world” in the book is almost, but not quite, like our own; its virtual reality technology is much, much more advanced than ours — and, of course, none of the game companies have recognizable names. Because I play WoW, it’s tempting to associate Omnitopia with Blizzard, but I don’t know enough about Trion or Turbine or Bioware or the various other MMO producers to associate them with any of Omnitopia’s rivals (and it wouldn’t necessarily be fair to any of them to do so).
Dev uses a forest of trees as a visual representation of Omnitopia’s overall code structure, and I couldn’t help but think of Crystalsong Forest.
I thought the core idea of the Omnitopia game was pretty cool — indeed, any company that could really get their gaming platform to do that would certainly profit beyond the wildest dreams of the goblins and the ethereals combined. Diane Duane described and expanded upon such common MMO concepts as guilds, raids, loot distribution, professions/crafting, and spellcasting within the Omnitopia game setting in a quite delightful way. Omnitopia has a nifty program for company-mentored player-developed content and a deviously clever method of dealing with players who behave badly. The characters were engaging — if somewhat idealized (even the bad guys!) — the plot kept me turning pages, and the twist at the end has me looking forward to Omnitopia #2. I do wonder, though, how the most successful game company on the planet could possibly get away with launching an expansion of the described magnitude without having at least some kind of public beta-testing period, which they seemed to not have done….
If you enjoy playing MMOs, you might also enjoy reading Omnitopia Dawn.
Posted in Pandaren, Screenshots, Story/RP on November 29, 2012 | 4 Comments »
When the Pandaren of the Wandering Isle come to Pandaria proper, I suspect they will find the August Celestials to be very familiar….
Remember the Muppet Babies and the Disney Babies and the Tiny Toons from the late ’80s and early ’90s? The relationship between the August Celestials of Pandaria mainland and the Ancient Elemental Spirits of the Wandering Isle sort of reminds me of that.
On a more serious level,
Xuen, the white tiger, is the embodiment of true strength, standing against the perverted uses of strength by the Shas of Anger, Violence, and Hatred; Huo, the ancient spirit of fire, represents “the passion of Shen-zin Su”.
Yu’lon, the jade serpent, is the embodiment of confidence, standing against the Sha of Doubt; Shu, the ancient spirit of water, represents “the spirit of Shen-zin Su”.
Niuzao, the black ox, is the embodiment of bravery, standing against the Sha of Fear; Wugou, the ancient spirit of earth, represents “the body of Shen-zin Su”.
Chi-ji, the red crane, is the embodiment of hope, standing against the Sha of Despair; Dafeng, the ancient spirit of air, represents… well, the quest chain doesn’t say. Given that we restore him by defeating the great black cloud serpent that is frightening him, however, I think “the courage of Shen-zin Su” is a reasonable interpretation.
True strength to govern one’s passions wisely. Confidence of spirit and mind to not only overcome doubts, but also have joy and delight in life. Bravery to protect the lives and property of oneself and those one loves. Hope, which gives one the courage to go and do things that may be mentally or emotionally overwhelming.
These are the lessons the Pandaren have for the rest of Azeroth… but how much more destruction must we wreak upon their land before our leaders understand?
#IntPiPoMo 51/50
Posted in Screenshots, Silly on November 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Pandaren, Screenshots, Story/RP on November 15, 2012 | 4 Comments »
When you have found all the lorescrolls, Lorekeeper Cho will have the following nine stories to tell you:
Between a Saurok and a Hard Place
Hozen in the Mist
Fish Tales
Dark Heart of the Mogu
Heart of the Mantid Swarm
What is Worth Fighting For
Song of the Yaungol
The Seven Burdens of Shaohao
The Ballad of Liu Lang
Can you match which picture is from which story?
#IntPiPoMo 48/50
(I did end up looking up where to find the last few lorescrolls — I looked up the exact location for the last Mantid scroll and the zones where I should search to find the Liu Lang and Emperor’s Burden scrolls I was missing.)
