minipost: Stitch, is that you?

Is it just me, or do the Marsuul creatures that will be found on Argus indeed look quite a bit like Stitch?

image from Petopia

image from Wikipedia

It all started because… (Z & Cinder’s Blog Challenge)

… I wanted to participate in the community.

About two and a half years after I began playing WoW, I was playing a lot with my Boomkin. I don’t remember anymore if I was still leveling her or if this was after BTH and I switched guilds and the new guild, having enough healers, wanted me as DPS on my Boomkin rather than as a healer on Kamalia. Anyhow, I wanted to get better at Boomkining, and that led me to Restokin. Reading Restokin led me to a number of other blogs (many of which are now long since in mothballs). Presently, I started wanting to make comments on the blogs I was reading. Eventually, I started wanting to talk about the game on my own platform. More specifically, I wanted to participate in a survey about healing by making an independent post about it rather than by leaving a lengthy comment on the blog that originated the survey.

Cataclysm was announced sometime around the time I began blogging, so a lot of posts in the first year were prompted by the upcoming changes to the world. One of the bloggers I read issued an “Exploration” challenge, for which I wrote a series of posts about the Shaman totem quests. Another issued an “Eleventh Hour” challenge to write a story about a specific zone with a specific plot element in the story; from that challenge came my first story about Kaelinda. I wrote other stories to work out acceptable backgrounds/character concepts for characters that I was initially uncomfortable with the idea of playing — Forsaken and Death Knights. I have continued to write stories to record and respond to quests and events within the game.

I’d also been quite active as a commenter and on the forums of Kirina’s Closet, an early RP clothes blog, so it was a natural transition from writing about RP clothes in that venue to writing about them on my own blog. Although this blog has pretty much always had a signifcant emphasis on pretty clothes, fashion began to dominate my content after Transmogrification debuted. I participated in a handful of Transmogrification contests or challenges in the first year after Transmogrification went live. I also started keeping a running documentation of my own characters’ Transmogrifications.

I’ve met a lot of people whom I like very much through the exchange of reading and commenting on blogs, and I definitely still value the participating-in-the-community aspect of blogging. Although I appreciate every comment I receive and am quite fond of all of you who comment regularly, I think that if I were always trying to write my blog for other people, I would have stopped blogging long ago. Indeed, I blog mostly for myself. I can’t really talk about this game in any depth or detail to anyone in my family except BTH (who got me into it in the first place) because they either disapprove (my Dad, my in-laws) or aren’t really interested/don’t care (everyone else). I don’t write a lot about what I do in Azeroth in my pen-and-paper journal, either — I mention it, but only briefly. This blog is my primary record of my experience with the game.

So I write about anything about the game that is occupying my mind. I comment on events (both in-game and meta-game), I set goals for my characters and track my success (or lack thereof) in accomplishing them, I respond to blogging prompts such as this one, I write stories (which usually languish unfinished in my drafts folder for a very long time before I finally post them), I draw pictures (which I haven’t done much of lately). While Transmogrification is probably the “bread and butter” content of my blog — especially in the past year since I started doing the Sunday Mog Show series — I strongly suspect that my interest in blogging would burn out and die if I tried to make this exclusively a Mog blog. I’d still want to write about other aspects of the game, but it would feel like too much work to try to maintain two distinct blogs that were both about WoW — and the blogging about Mogging itself would become a tedious chore instead of a fun diversion. “Variety is the spice of life,” and all that.

I also feel like blogging — both writing about my own activities and reading about others’ activities — has helped me sustain my interest in the game. Someday, though, my interest in WoW and in blogging about WoW will dwindle, and I will wander away and find something else to occupy myself with. I like to think that when I feel that starting to happen, I will download and archive in some form or another my favorite content from this blog — by which I mean all of the posts linked on the “Stories” page and all of the “Things my [Class] Wears” posts — so that later, I can look back fondly on the time that I spent with this game and the things that it inspired me to create.

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This post brought to you by Z & Cinder’s Blog Challenge #23:

Why do you blog about WoW?
Everyone who has created a blog has done so for a reason. For all of you WoW bloggers out there, what was that reason? Why did you choose to put fingers to keys to write about a computer game? What type of posts do you like to write? Does your blog have a theme to it, or do you just wing it and write whatever you want? We’d love to know!

the Underpowered Death Knight and the Doomsayers’ return

The burned-out husk of a world appeared suddenly in the sky. Though she didn’t know exactly how it had come to be there, the Underpowered Death Knight suspected that it had something to do with the activities of the Big Damn Heroes in the Broken Isles.

So she went to Dalaran.

Anxiety filled the floating city.

So did Draenei, conversing in excited tones.

So the ruined world was the Draenei homeworld, Argus, then? But how had it gotten to be looming over Azeroth?

And the Doomsayers were back, apparently feeling very Validated by this turn of events.

The first Doomsayer she talked to handed her a pamphlet. It was not the same as the pamphlets the Doomsayers had been handing out before the Legion Invasions began, a year ago. The Underpowered Death Knight decided to wait around and see how many different pamphlets she could collect, and compare the new pamphlets to to the ones she had collected last year.

A few were obvious sequels to the previous pamphlets.

The others did not correspond so well, but she matched them up as best she could.

She hoped that Archmage Khadgar and the Order Hall leaders knew what they were doing…

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It was fun to discover this stuff for myself on Tuesday afternoon/evening, before Wowhead and Blizzard Watch made their posts about it. This is just a pre-patch event, but it feels more like a pre-expansion event!

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I’ve now updated the image links in all of the Underpowered Death Knight posts and given them their own section on the Stories page.

Previously: Scenes from the Auction House dance party

Happy Birthday, Kamalia!

Kamalia is TEN years old today!

In the first year of this blog, I made a post when Kamalia turned three in which I wrote:

When BTH and I were dating, he told me about this game he liked to play called World of Warcraft. He showed me the gameplay one night; it was a month or two after the release of the Burning Crusade expansion and he was leveling his Dwarf Paladin in Terrokar Forest. I remember quite vividly the strangeness of the warp stalkers and noticing that the male and female blood elves (at Firewing Point) had different death animations.

After we got married, we spent a month playing through Final Fantasy III together before he got me started on World of Warcraft. I wrote in my journal that night, or perhaps the next day, about having created my first character in this new game I was playing with my new husband — which is why I remember Kamalia’s “birthday” at all. I didn’t make note of, and therefore don’t remember, the dates upon which I created any of my subsequent characters.

BTH created an Undead Priest to level with my Tauren Shaman, but when I got stuck on some early quests, he brought in his level 16 Tauren Druid to help me out. Eventually I decided that I liked questing with the Druid better than with the Priest. By the time we got to level 70, the Dwarf Paladin had been abandoned and the Tauren Druid had become BTH’s new main. He wanted to try out tanking with his Druid, and hasn’t looked back since.

We’ve had a lot of fun playing this game together over the past three years. I’ve gotten a lot more involved and interested in it than I ever thought I would at the beginning — the world just has so much to explore, to see and to do. I don’t know if I have another three years worth of interest in the game in me, but I’ll enjoy it for as long as I can!

Well, here we are seven years later, and Kamalia (and her entourage of family and friends) is still a big part of my life. It’s been a grand ten years. I don’t know if I have another ten years worth of interest in the game in me — or even if the game itself has another ten years of longevity left in it — but I’ll keep right on enjoying it for as long as I can!

Sunday on the Promenade 31: Nightmare-Haunted

After doing the main storyline of Val’sharah twelve times to collect the Tears of Elune and unlock the “acquire a Pillar of Creation” Artifact tint with each class, I felt inspired to create a set of Nightmare-touched Transmogrification kits. As so often happens whenever I have such an idea, between collecting all the items I would need and other ideas that popped up, it’s taken me quite some time to get around to realizing it in-game.

PvP gear — especially early PvP gear — tends to have the blood red and black color scheme now associated with the Emerald Nightmare. I don’t PvP, so I’ve picked up all of the PvP items in my wardrobe by cheater methods — turning in T4 & T5 raid tokens to the Exotic Gear Purveyors on the Isle of Quel’danas, buying Champion’s Honor tokens at the Auction House during Warlords, using my Mage’s insta-WQ Order Hall perk to pick up Marks of Honor during Legion.

Malorne’s Nightmare

Gladiator’s Dragonhide Armor with Cloak of the Untamed Predator and Crimson Steel/Dagger of the Horde Vanguard/Shadow Wing Focus Staff/Funeral Pyre (H)
This Druid-specific kit was way too obvious and appropriate an idea to pass up.
If you’re capable of raiding Heroic or Mythic Emerald Nightmare — and you get very lucky — then of course you should sub in the The First Satyr’s Spaulders.
Fist weapons for Guardian; daggers for Feral; Shadow Wing Focus Staff for Balance; and Funeral Pyre for Resto. I like Funeral Pyre for Resto because it looks sort of like the twisted, cracked, glowing corrupted roots of Shaladrassil. The Talon Guard Staff would also be a good choice for the Resto version of this kit.

The Earthmother’s Nightmare

Vengeful Gladiator’s Ringmail Spaulders, Wild Gladiator’s Ringmail Armor, Stormwrap, Vengeful Gladiator’s Ringmail Gauntlets, Greatcloak of the Turned Champion, Crimson Steel + Gladiator’s Shield Wall/Firecrystal Mace + Crest of Supremacy/Bloodskull Destroyer + Swiftsteel Bludgeon
Of course I had to use these shoulders, which have been an iconic Shaman look since Burning Crusade. I tried an all-red outfit, but that didn’t fit the “Earthmother” name I wanted to give this kit very well. So I looked around a little more, and this Warlords PvP chest was just right.
Fist weapon + shield for Elemental; 1H mace + shield for Resto; and dual-wield 1H maces for Enhancement.

Nightmares of the Damned

Helm of Infinite Visions, Shoulderplates of the Eternal, Inferno Tempered Chestguard, Darkcrest belt gloves & boots, Primordial Bloodsoaked Vambraces, Runed Sketh’lon Legplates, Crimson Paragon’s Cover, Shortblade of the Uncrowned + Gladiator’s Shield Wall/Hatebringer/Warmonger
The Blood Knights and Death Knights have had the “nightmare paladin” angle covered for years; this outfit takes cues from both of them. Using the Darkcrest (or Boulderfist) items brings in some purplish undertones, though, which are another characteristic of Legion‘s Emerald Nightmare color scheme.
The bracers are red and blue, but just the red top band peeps up above the gloves, just enough to cover an otherwise distracting gap between the sleeves of the chestplate and the gloves.
Sword + shield for Prot; 2H mace for Holy; and 2H sword for Ret.

Nightmares of Eternal Darkness

Faded Spirit-Wrencher Shoulders, Fireworm Robes, Gem-Inlaid Velvet Cinch, Gloves of Piscine Attraction + Bracers of Martyrdom, Brilliant Hexweave Cloak (3-670), Blood Weeper + Prophetic Cane*/Damnation/Twisted Visage
Dagger + off-hand for Shadow; Damnation for Holy; Twisted Visage for Disc. The Netherlord’s Staff of Summoning and Abracadaver also look great with this outfit.

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I made a few other new kits, too.

Blood Lust (Not Heroism)

Helm of Affinity, Vengeful Gladiator’s Ringmail Spaulders, Crimson Mail Hauberk, Scarlet Belt*, Inferno Forged Leggings, Vengeful Gladiator’s Ringmail Gauntlets, Earthbreaker’s Greaves, Rising Tide
A preliminary idea for a mail “Nightmare” kit that was entirely too much red. I really liked it, though, and I didn’t want to wait a week or two to make it with Kamalia Prime (and it’s not really very much her style anyway), so mini-Kam gets a new outfit.

Wyrmrest Protector

Temporal Pauldrons, Crimsonforge Breastplate, Girdle of Lordaeron’s Fallen, Bloodlord Legplates, Gauntlets of Cruel Intention, Boots of Zealotry, Tabard of the Wyrmrest Accord, Firethorn Mindslicer, Red Dragonscale Protector
I originally planned to make this outfit concept — red dragon shoulders & shield + Wyrmrest tabard — with my Paladin, but then I thought, my Warrior can use shields, too, so why should my Paladin get to have all the fun?
It always surprises me how dark and subdued the colors in these shoulders are. I think that the red recolor of the Warrior T1 set, with the belt from the red recolor of the Paladin T6 set, is a suitable intermediate shade of red to bridge the difference between the maroon of the shoulders and the crimson and scarlet of the tabard and shield.

Cloud Rider

Grievous Gladiator’s Ironskin Spaulders, Jinxed Hoodoo Skin, Pennyroyal Belt, Clefthoof Britches & Wanderboots, Grips of Slicing Electricity (LFR), Order of the Cloud Serpent Tabard, Staff of Trembling Will
Everyone else in the Lotus Garden collection had gotten a new outfit, so I decided to give Kate a new outfit, too. This is another of my favorite tabards from Pandaria. I love its soft, pastel colors.
Here is an alternate version of the outfit using the Belt of the Silent Path, which has very similar colors to the tabard, and the Mantle of Wicked Revenge.

Pandaren Parasol

Faded Forest Silk Cowl, Brewer’s Robe, Galaxyfire Girdle, Breezebinder Handwraps, Kurkenstoks, Skystrider Katana, Umbrella of Chi-ji
The Umbrella of Chi-ji is one of my favorite Archaeology items ever! I love the model — though I do wish that equipping or mogging to it also gave the animation of holding it over the shoulder, like Aki the Chosen does, because it’s so big.

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The other day, I had a bit of an obsessive-compulsive fit and updated the image links in all of my themed Transmogrification collection posts that feature specific items. These posts are now linked at the bottom of the main Transmogrification page using icons of the featured items.

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This series of posts began because I set myself a goal to document new Transmogrification outfits in a more timely fashion. As soon as I create a new outfit, I write it up in a draft post. As the weekend approaches, I start working on taking fashion screenshots, processing them, and updating “Things my [Class] Wears” posts. On Sunday — though not every Sunday — I publish the collection of my recent efforts. Then I begin the next “Sunday on the Promenade” draft post.

Occasionally, I have ideas for themed Transmogrification collections that take several months to completely assemble. Thus, some of these outfits might get re-posted at a later date as part of such a themed Transmogrification collection.

If any of you, my dear readers, have kits that you’d like to share, I’d be happy to add you to the show! Just email me your picture(s), along with a list of the items in the outfit. I don’t regularly check my blog email, though, so if you’ve sent me an outfit, please make a comment on the most recent Sunday Mog Show post so that I know to check my blog email for your contribution.

Things my Warrior Wears, part 6 (outfits 51 – 60)

A collection of Transmogrification Kits actually worn in-game by my Tauren Warriors. Outfits are listed from most recent to least recent. Items that are no longer obtainable are marked with an asterisk (*).

51) Wyrmrest Protector

Temporal Pauldrons, Crimsonforge Breastplate, Girdle of Lordaeron’s Fallen, Bloodlord Legplates, Gauntlets of Cruel Intention, Boots of Zealotry, Tabard of the Wyrmrest Accord, Firethorn Mindslicer, Red Dragonscale Protector
I originally planned to make this outfit concept — red dragon shoulders & shield + Wyrmrest tabard — with my Paladin, but then I thought, my Warrior can use shields, too, so why should my Paladin get to have all the fun?
It always surprises me how dark and subdued the colors in these shoulders are. I think that the red recolor of the Warrior T1 set, with the belt from the red recolor of the Paladin T6 set, is a suitable intermediate shade of red to bridge the difference between the maroon of the shoulders and the crimson and scarlet of the tabard and shield.

pretty kitties with wings

I’m sensing a trend here…

The only other Blizzard Store mounts I’ve gotten are

and

Not exactly kitties, but definitely pretties!