more things for Kamalia’s “to do” list

Kamalia has quite a few things lingering on her “to do” list. There’s those two Inn dungeon quests (the initial version) that she never got around to doing because the hotfix that made it so you don’t have to do all the Inn dungeon quests to get the level 3 Inn went through before she did them. There’s the Legendary quest to vanquish the end boss of Highmaul and pinch his toe-ring or whatever… and I doubt that I’ll get into LFR to do that until summer. And oh yeah, the Abrogator gubbins. I’ve gotten about 30 of those so far, from Garrison missions and random procs in my work order boxes. There’s Nat Pagle’s quest to fish up a lunker in each Draenor zone, which I haven’t done because I’m dithering over whether or not I actually want Nat as a follower in Kam’s Garrison (I do want him in the Hunter’s Garrison, eventually).

To that list, I’ve now added the Garrison music box quest. I’m not sure when I’ll do it, though. At first, I thought I’d try to do it this weekend. This weekend is still Lunar Festival, however, and I haven’t had time to do the Lunar Festival World Tour with the Underpowered Death Knight yet — and the Underpowered Death Knight is counting on all that holiday XP to get her a significant fraction of the way from her current level of 89 to 90.

Harrison Jones didn’t show up in Kam’s Garrison. Is he one of the RNG visitors and he might show up tomorrow, or the next day, or is he not deigning to visit me yet because I don’t have my Archaeology to 700 yet?

After I logged in and out with all my alts to load my heirlooms into the spiffy new Heirloom tab, I found that I have 41 of the 71 possible heirloom items — more than enough to qualify for the Chauffeured Chopper. I still don’t dig the Chauffeured Chopper enough to use it with my baby alts.

I’m not familiar enough with most of the new models to be able to notice how many of them (or which ones) recieved tweaks from the versions that came out with the pre-launch patch. I did immediately notice, however, that my Human Mage is less top-heavy, less busty, today than she was yesterday — and that’s a good thing! Her face looks better, too — though her monocle is now displaying really wierdly. It barely looks like it’s there at all — it just makes her eye look funny. My Draenei Mage looks more like her original self than the first version of the updated Draenei model did. And if I’m not mistaken, the Tauren female run got some adjustments; the first version of the new model run looked a lot like the Worgen female run to me, and while I appreciated that it made my girls look more fleet, it still felt wrong. Today, they look like they’re planting their hooves more solidly, feeling sure-footed like the original run without feeling quite as ponderous as the original run.

The new Blood Elf model suits the Warlock very well. The Rogue looks good, too. The Mage will take the most getting used to simply because I’m the most familiar with her — but her new look isn’t terrible or anything. It’s acceptable; she still looks thoughtful and sweet-tempered (for a Blood Elf). Except, of course, when she’s doing that tilted-head sneer. I used to like the tilted-head pose because I thought it looked contemplative. No more, alas. The sneer works for the Warlock and the Rogue, though!

Now that the updated models for the Blood Elves are finally done, I guess it’s time that I start working on updating my woefully out-of-date Characters page. Making all those character portraits on the current version of the page was a lot of work, though, and I did it last summer while I had less RL stuff to do. I’m not quite sure how I’ll fit that work in now. I think I’ll procrastinate it just a little bit longer — it’s always been difficult to get really good close-ups of my characters’ faces in-game (I used MogIt to get the close-ups for my current set of portraits) and I think the SELFIE camera might be just what I’m wanting for that. So now I have to wait for the two photography missions to show up in one or another of my Garrisons…

minipost: I want a chauffeur, but not for my chopper

For me, a new alt becomes “real” — that is, significantly less likely to be summarily deleted — when she reaches level 20 and can learn to ride. I’m not sure that I want to take that goalpost/milestone away from myself by acquiring a mount that I can use at level 1.

Perhaps, though, it’s just that I’m not really excited about a chauffeured Chopper.

If it were going to be a Chauffeured Hotrod —

— then, yeah, I’d be looking for ways to increase my heirloom hoard as quickly as I could.

I think Blizzard missed a great opportunity here!

minipost: look who showed up AGAIN

Because I’m usually logging in only once a day, I’m usually sending my followers on long missions instead of short missions. I therefore decided to recruit for High Stamina this week.

I had thought that once you saw a follower in the recruitment pane and chose someone else, you weren’t likely to see that follower again anytime soon. So I was quite surprised to see this guy show up again!

It was a tough choice between Yepa and Enola. I have fewer followers overall with Enola’s ability than I do followers with Yepa’s ability, though, so I chose Enola.

latecomer to the pink party

I’d recently made a new Transmogrification kit for my Paladin and hadn’t yet posted it, so I thought perhaps I’d pass on dressing her up for Love is in the Air this year. She kept poking me, however, that she hadn’t spent all that time in Hyjal Summit last year farming for the Blood-Stained Pauldrons to not wear them during Pink Season this year.

The Power of Pink


Blood-Stained Pauldrons, Bloodscale chestpiece belt & gloves, Imperial Plate Leggings, Chromatic Boots, Nethervoid Cloak, Skettis Curved Blade, Aegis of the Vindicator

Soulare is in another Garrison

Because Kamalia’s professions — skinning and leatherworking — are not primarily dependent upon herbs and ore, I wasn’t going to bother with raising her Garrison herb garden and mine past level 1. Her herb garden’s random generation of herbs has produced enough Gorgrond Flytrap to keep both herself and my Tailor well-stocked for their daily profession CDs — though that has been helped by my laxity in keeping my Barn supplied with trapped beasties to provide raw leather. My Alchemist, however, has run through the Frostweed that I’d stockpiled prior to bringing her out to Draenor, and the random generation of Frostweed by Kam’s herb garden does not reliably provide enough to guarantee my Alchemist her daily profession CD. Because it’s likely to be some time before I manage to get my Alchemist leveled up enough to unlock her own herb garden, I decided that I ought to go ahead and upgrade Kam’s herb garden to level 2 and recruit a follower to staff it.

When I recruited for an Herbalist this week, these are the three applicants that Akanja found:

Well, now. I know that Soulare of Andorhal can give you a toy, but I don’t really care much about collecting toys. I know that he’s a reference to some other game or pop-culture something, but I’m not familiar with the thing that is being alluded to, so I don’t need him in my Garrison for that. Being a Human Male, he does not fit into Kamalia’s highly discriminatory policy of hiring only Tauren or women through the Inn.

I chose Bim’ini instead.

Perhaps my Paladin will specifically try to recruit Soulare. If I can figure out how do to it, I’d like to have her get the Argent Crusade banners and guards for her Garrison, so he’d fit in well with her crew.

’tis the season to Think Pink

My favorite part of “Love is in the Air” is that it gives me an excuse to wear some very silly outfits.

Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry


Pauldrons of the Wardancer, Bloodscale chestpiece & belt, Brutish pants gloves & boots, Pink Mageweave Shirt, Ironhew Cloak, Hammer of Destiny
I intended to just re-create the brown-and-pink outfit that I forgot to make for my secondary Warrior during Love is in the Air last year — but then I remembered that I had these shoulders in the bank, and I could not resist the silliness of using them to resemble the crown of sepals at the top of a strawberry…

Heartburn

Runic Plate Shoulders, Boulderfist Armor, Bloodscale Belt & Gauntlets, Legguards of the Shattered Hand, Bloodforged Sabatons, War Paint Cloak, Hammer of Destiny
What is this thing called “love”? And why does it hurt so much?
Some kind person tossed a Lovely Rose at me as I was coming out of the Warpweaver‘s shop. It was the perfect finishing touch for the outfit!

Hunting for Love

Ornate Pauldrons, Workforce Chestguard, Myrmidon’s Girdle, Pounding Leggings, Scarlet Gauntlets*, Brigade Boots, Night Elven Bow
I’d already collected the green and blue versions of this set — one of the most handsome low-level mail kits — so I figured, why not pick up the red one, too?
Try the Brigade or Merciless Gloves in place of the Scarlet Gauntlets.

Blacklight Battleguard

Katoom’s Mask, Resplendent Epaulets, Vestments of the Shifting Sands, Black Belt of Knowledge, Coven Britches, Exiled Dabbler’s Gloves, Junglestrider Sandals, Stylish Black Shirt, Swarming Sting-Staff
If I had been sensible, I would have farmed for the Staff of the Qiraji Prophets at the same time as I was farming for the robe. But I was not, and didn’t begin farming for the staff until after I obtained the robe. The Swarming-Sting Staff is a good stand-in until I get the Qiraji staff, though.

farewell, WoW Insider

I, too, am saddened that WoW Insider is having to close up shop. Although I didn’t participate in the WoW Insider community, as a reader, I love what the site does.

Where will I go, now, for my daily dose of The Queue?
Will Anne start writing at her old blog again, so I can still enjoy her dazzling knowledge of lore and especially her Tinfoil Hat theories?
Will Rossi start writing on his personal blog more, and will I be able to get a weekly dose of Dinosaurs Are Awesome there, now, too?
What about the WoW Archivist column? Will there be somewhere else, somewhere new, that takes thematic explorations into how World of Warcraft has developed over its history?
I’ll miss Alex — or is it one of the Adams? — writing occasionally about his “day job” with the Minnesota Opera, because I’m rather fond of the Twin Cities, and it was fun to connect his mentions of his work at the opera with what I’d hear about the opera while listening to Minnesota Public Radio.
I’ll miss the way WoW Insider breaks the news up into easily understandable, easily linkable single-topic posts that help me to figure out the features of a new patch or expansion that I’m most excited about. Wowhead is great and getting better all the time, but it just doesn’t fill the same news-digesting role that WoW Insider does.
I’ll miss their commentary, their editorials and opinions, on the news. When WoW Insider said something, I usually agreed, and I hoped that because they were a big site with an apparently good relationship with Blizzard, that Blizz would actually pay attention.

Plus, I seriously doubt that my “Things my characters are wearing with their Shado-Pan Helmets” would be continuing to be my number one source of hits each week if WoW Insider hadn’t linked it shortly after I originally published it. I am continually grateful to them for that moment in the limelight.

I suppose I’ll have to keep an eye out for whatever comes to pass on February third…