Mama Druid

While I’ve been in a lackadaisical mood about the game for the past month or so, I have been playing and accomplishing a few things here and there:

• Selenyx learned epic flying and bought an epic flyer - Wheeee! - and started the quest line for epic flight form
• Protection Belfadin leveled from 39 to 40 and loves her AoE tanking spec and mount
• 61 Undead priest respecced from shadow to disc/holy and is much happier
• 48 Troll mage dropped skinning for alchemy and powerleveled it to 270
• deleted and created a handful of Alliance characters
  (one of those deleted characters was my 29 twink druid who, by the way, had more HP than my 48 mage)
• having fun with the Fire Festival

I’m really just puttering around ingame with no driven purpose or motivation. Since posting my response to the Blog Azeroth shared topic question “What are you doing to prepare for WotLK?” I’ve been thinking about it a bit more seriously. When the time comes, which of my characters do I want adventuring in Northrend?

The most obvious answer would be Mama Druid herself, Selenyx.

But…

When I play Alliance and see Horde, I get warm fuzzies and want to join them. When I play Horde and see Alliance, I do not get warm fuzzies and am sometimes overcome with feelings of wanting to hurt them.

I asked The Hubby if he would prefer to play the expansion on Horde or Alliance. Horde was his answer.

So maybe I am doing something to prepare for WotLK afterall… thinking about switching sides. In doing so, I’m recovering from the Apathy bug. As far as recoveries go, this one is slow and steady and will no doubt accelerate in the near future.

Tags: Gameplay, Horde, WotLK

I read today that with WotLK, a new model for the druid’s dire bear form will be introduced.

THANK YOU BLIZZ!

In addition, we will get a dire cat form!

OMG - THANK YOU BLIZZ!

It’s the little things… y’know?

Tags: Druid, WotLK

Every year I take the same two weeks off the kids get for Winter break. Doing so allows me to have the time to do whatever we need for the holidays, visit family, and even do a little bit of nothing.

This past break I bought Final Fantasy X for that little bit of nothing. I rented it (or borrowed from someone, can’t remember which) a couple years back and because it was on borrowed time my goal was to finish the game. This time around I’m taking my time and enjoying it. I now have about 60 hours played and just beat the Seymour that appears on top of Mt. Gagazet.

Although Tidus can be annoying with his immature emo-ness, and I hate that I can’t skip (or haven’t figured out how) through the sappy movie scenes, it’s nice playing a game that has a story to unfold. I miss that aspect of a first person RPG where your character is the star of a mystery. Coming from an open ended world where there are multitudes of stories to be discovered (vs. played), it’s refreshing to play a game with structure and focus.

FFX is my secret lover!

Tags: FFX

This is a Blog Azeroth Shared Topic.

In preparation for the much anticipated expansion, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), I’m not doing much of anything at all. Like Be Nameless, I’m a grasshopper. I’m not following leaked information, so I really don’t know what to prepare for or how to prepare for what I don’t know.

I plan to take this expansion in stride, just as I did with Burning Crusade. I had three 60s and it took me a year to level one of them to 70. And the other two? Well, one is 64 and the other 61. Reaching the level cap, and thus the end of the game as I knew it while leveling, isn’t much of a priority for me.

When WotLK Does Arrive

I will wait.

I will wait at least a few months before creating a Death Knight. I will wait until the Northrend crowds have died down before stepping foot on the new land. I may even wait awhile before buying WotLK.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

People just now picking up their first copy of WoW are playing an entirely different game than when I started in December 2004. The same can be said for players entering Outlands for the first time now as opposed to when BC was released. All the bugs have been worked out, for the most part.

I will wait for the scurrying ants to prepare the way for us grasshoppers.

Until then, I will continue plodding along at my own pace having my fun.

Tags: Blog Azeroth, WotLK

See this lovely dress the Tabard Designer in Darnassus is wearing?

Ummm… I wants it!

And the shoes too! They go rather nicely with the dress.

Alas, I have not seen this dress available at any vendor in all of Azeroth or Outlands, nor have I seen it drop from any mob in the entire World of Warcraft. As far as I know, not even a Master Tailor is able to learn the secrets of this beautiful pattern.

This Tabard Designer, Ellaercia, knows she is wearing the most unique dress in the whole world. She won’t give it up. Not for any price. I dared not propose a fight to death for the dress as my kitty claws would most certainly tear it up.

Oh well. I suppose the bag slot the dress would have occupied could be used for other things.

Tags: Fashion

Hmmm… I’ve only made 4 posts this month (5 now) and it’s already the middle of June. The weather’s improving, the kids are out of school (and at Grandma’s this week - woot! for us!), things at work have ramped up about tenfold, and my posting frequency has suffered.

What Summertime Means to Me

Whenever I hear the word summertime, my favorite summer song pops in my mind and sometimes I start singing it! The song evokes feelings of playful, easy going warm days and plants a firm smile on my face.

This summer, there will be:

• outside concerts and festivals
• summer school for both kids so they can be in advanced math classes this fall
• a trip to the coast with my mama, bruddahs, their families, and my own family
• pitching the tent in our backyard
• crazy busy at work as we prepare for some big events in the fall
• possibly The Hubby’s high school reunion
• a handful of super hot days that make us wish we had air conditioning
• yummy fresh foods
• company picnics

All in all, it’s a great time of year and we have been looking forward to its arrival.

What does summer mean to you?

Tags: Music, Video

Last night I was on my Horde mage camping a vendor for an alchemy recipe. At one point boredom overcame me and I repeatedly clicked the vendor and noticed that my mage had slightly turned. But I hadn’t turned her, so how could this be?

Well, it turns out, as I had just accidentally discovered, that when right clicking and dragging the screen AT THE SAME TIME you move your character.

Yes, I’m fully aware of how n00bish this makes me sound. I’m pretty sure I’m the last person in WoW with a 2-button mouse to have learned this.

But I have an excuse!

When I started playing WoW I used the 1-button mouse that came with my Mac. When I learned about and read how to perform a jump shot, I knew I couldn’t do it with my 1-button mouse. However, eventually it broke and was replaced by what I currently use - a TrackMan Wheel. But I never revisited the possibilty of performing a jump shot using this new mouse.

Until last night.

There are times when you can explain something to someone until you are blue in the face but they don’t get it until they figure it out themself. Yep, even by accident when they weren’t trying. Then they come to you all excited and with a big goofy grin on their face and tell you that now they know what you meant. And then you choke them while yelling, “That’s what I’ve been telling you all this time!!!”

Can you tell I’m a parent?

This was one of those times for me… except all the jump shot guide authors aren’t wanting to choke me.

Needless to say, I spent some time playing around with this “new toy” - on my mage. I practiced it while she was running on her mount. Run forward, jump, right-click+drag, continue running in same direction as before. It was awesome!

It works when you are swimming too! You right-click+drag up and your character swims up. You right-click+drag down and your character swims down. It makes swimming an entirely new experience for me.

I honestly have no idea why I didn’t accidentally discover this a long time ago. I suppose it’s proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

I am so trying this on my hunters tonight.

Tags: Gameplay, Hunter, n00bs, Tech

My apologies for the 404 error to those who were trying to access this post. I had posted directly from Flickr and the formatting wasn’t working right. I didn’t have time to correct it last night, so I just deleted the post and am now reposting it with complete control over the formatting.

March 2005. I was questing in Desolace when I came across this Orc enjoying the view. I wasn’t sure if he was AFK or simply hadn’t noticed me. Y’see, I was very accustomed to Horde killing me and fully expected to be engaged in battle anytime I saw Horde. I cautiously approached him. He didn’t flinch, and I sat down next to him. He acknowledged my presence and there we sat, enjoying the view together.

Brain Dump Alert!

I’ve been doing lotsa things in WoW lately and I need to rattle them off and get them out of my head.

The Ragga @ 28

I decided to not 29 BG her as I really do want to level her to the cap… it’ll take me 10 years to get there, but I’m determined!

I tamed a wind serpent. A purty shiny red one that I ran around looking for in The Barrens. I really really really wanted the one spawned by a Horde quest because it has a unique quality of appearing in a puff of smoke, but I don’t have the patience to make arrangements.

This one will do nicely.

Twinkie

I have a level 29 almost fully twinked resto druid, but I don’t play her much. I think BGs raise my blood pressure in a strangely exhilirating way. I’m pretty much The Hubby’s pocket healer when I BG with his 29 twinks (rogue, shammy, hunter).

With my druid’s twinkage, I discovered that I can actually do some decent damage with my Starfire spell. This one time (sorry, no band camps in Azeroth) I was on my way to meet his shammy at the Horde’s ramp and he was killed before I could get there. I continued, stealthed, and waited at the top for him to res and come back. Instead, the EFC ran up the ramp… alone. He was a few levels lower than me, maybe 25, so I figured what the hell and rooted him and starfired him and moonfired him and rooted him and starfired him to death. Then I returned our flag.

That was fun, especially because I hadn’t thought of her as a killer. Mwuahahaha!

And of course I didn’t capture any screens.

The Horde

Since the inception of this blog, I’ve written primarily about my Alliance characters. A baby Horde hunter made an appearance in one post, but that’s been the extent of any Horde appearances here at Mama Druid. One would assume that I pretty much exclusively play Alliance, and such an assumption would make sense considering the lack of a Horde presence in my posts.

Au contraire!

In fact, my first 60 was a Horde character. My first epic land mount was obtained on that Horde character, and no it wasn’t a BG mount.

Here she is making an appearance in her very first screenshot, dated September 7, 2005.

Before BC I had two 60s Horde side whereas Alliance side I had one. So I’ve spent a good amount of time playing Horde. Just not lately. My poor ladies of the Horde have been collecting a lot of dust and making sad faces at me when I peek at them on the character selection screen.

I don’t know what it is about the Horde, there are many debates as to the differences between the two factions, so I can only speak for myself. When I’m on Horde, I get a sense of peace and calm. It’s like a coming home feeling. You’d think I’d be playing my Horde characters more.

I think so too. So, I dusted off the pally and priest and am now drafting a post or two about their current adventures in Azeroth.

For the Horde!

Tags: Horde, Pets, Raggamuffin, Twinks

Reputation Calculator

I came across this beauty by way of Kinless’ Chronicles. It’s a handy dandy reputation calculator that tells you what you can do to reach your next level of reputation with an Outland faction.

http://www.wowreputationcalculator.com

Full of awesome win!

Tags: Factions