/AFK

I'll be going back home for a couple of weeks' visit on Friday, so I'm not sure if there will be any posts until the end of the month. If there are, good. If not, don't say I didn't warn you.

I wonder if in some perverse sub-concious sort of thing I planned it when Wrath hits on purpose so I could pick it up in Israel (can't find anywhere that would ship the EU version to Japan). Then again, does it even matter?

Where did my weekend go?

I was certain there was supposed to be a weekend between Friday and Monday. Somehow, it just flew by without hardly noticing. I guess time does fly when you're having fun. Define fun? Well, let's see what I did over the weekend:

• Logged in to Alierah to do some dailies. No, that's not the fun part yet. While I was doing my thing, someone was looking for a healer for Durnholde, and since I've never been there I gladly joined them. The run was "normal" - not too good, not too bad, but still fun. Managed to get the Crown of Endless Knowledge which, other than being an upgrade, just looks great.
• Decided to quest through the zones I haven't done in Outlands, starting with Blade's Edge Mountains. Pretty much finished all the quest at Thunderlord Stronghold, when I got a whisper asking if I want to do the quest chain to unlock Ogri'la. Finally! You may now address me as "Queen Alierah". =)
• Played around with Cawti a little. Did the lockpicking quest, picked up all the Deadmines quests, and tried to get a run going. After a few false starts, I headed back to Bloodmyst. Logging on again last night, I managed to find another group, already halfway through*, and together we took care of VanCleef. Got some nice upgrades out of the whole thing - Blackened Defias Belt, Cape of the Brotherhood, and the quest reward Tunic of Westfall. Also got some green weapon upgrades which didn't hurt, and Cookie's Tenderizer which I'm not sure whether or not I want to use (won it on a greed roll). Now I'm getting ready to do the poison quests, and go gather up some Stockade quests. Don't know if I'll actually do it, but it can't hurt to be prepared.

Also, in the "nice but totally unimportant" category - clams stack now. I'm not sure how many you can stack in one slot, but at least 5. Thank you, Blizzard.


* Which was fine, since I managed to finish up all the other quests in the previous runs that fell apart.

"Master of Anatomy"? Is that some First Aid skill?

After realizing my noobish mistake*, I took Cawti (human rogue Cawti, not Blood Elf pally Cawty) back to Stormwind to catch the boat to Auberdine and on to Bloodmyst. I was starting to run around killing things, and skinning them while I was at it, when all of a sudden I get a message that I discovered "Master of Anatomy (Rank 1)". So now I have a slightly better crit rating thanks to my leet skinning skills. Got me wondering what the other professions had, until I got another message for discovering Toughness. While it's not as good as the talent, it's still a nice "freebie". Of course, that means Herbalism should also get something, and it did - Lifeblood. Seems pretty nice since, at least for the moment, it heals more than my bandages and doesn't require any cloth. Too bad I didn't know about it when picking professions... Still, no complaints. The copper is selling pretty well on the AH, and I'm even starting to get some tin and make bronze.

So now Cawti's sleeping at the inn, halfway through level 13. I'll probably get her to 16, when I can get the lockpicking quests, and then head back to SW temporarily to do that and maybe catch some Deadmines runs. As always, time will tell if that plan actually works out.

Also, with all the "excitement" of playing Cawti, I didn't get to do dailies last night. You know what? It doesn't bother me too much. It's nice to know I am not enslaved by the race for more gold (at least not yet).


* Hey, when I passed through SW I saw someone else who was just as surprised/confused as me about it.

It's been a while...

Wow, how time flies. I haven't posted since dinging 70... Better do something about that, don't you think? So let's see what we have for today.

Alierah

Since dinging Alierah's been keeping busy doing dailies, some BGs and a few instances when she can find them. I got her some epics - 2 rings from the headless horseman and 2 pieces of armor from the Argent Dawn for helping to stop the scourge invasion. Other than that, I'm slowly working on getting the Primal Mooncloth set (I somehow forgot about the 4-day cooldown on making Primal Mooncloth, so I only have the belt for now) and leveling up Enchanting. Tailoring is at 374, but should "ding" 375 once I make the shoulders, and Enchanting is currently at 340 waiting for some mats from my bank alt. One very nice potential upgrade I found is a PvP staff, but I need too many AV marks and honor to get it, so I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon. Still, nice to have something to strive for.

Confessions

I have some confessions to make. First, I'm cheating. Please don't tell WoW - I don't want to hurt it's feelings, but I just got LittleBigPlanet and Eternal Sonata, and they're managing to take up ridiculous amounts of my time.

Second, I've gone and done it again - I started a new alt. Cawti (yes, I sometimes recycle names, deal with it) is a Human rogue on Moonglade. It feels really good being back in Moonglade after so long - even just listening to General and Trade channels feels so much more RP and I donno... Mature? than other servers, so it's really nice. Of course, I started out practically broke there (just had enough money to get 2 Netherweave Bags), so I'm working on getting some money with Mining and Skinning*.

The last one is a little embarassing. Cawti finished up all her business in Elwynn Forest at level 11, and I decided to take her to Bloodmyst Isle to get her up to 20. So I headed to Ironforge, took care of business (like banking all my armor) and ran out to Menethil. So far, so good. When I got there, I decided I might as well get the Theramore flight point, so I did that too. But then I sort of got "stuck". I couldn't find the boat to Auberdine. I've been playing for almost 3 years, rode that boat countless times, and now I couldn't do something as simple as getting to Kalimdor. I went to the dock it was always at, and waited for 10 minutes, but the boat didn't show. Talking to the NPC standing there, he said something about getting the boat to Northrend from there. Obviously, that's not going to happen until Wrath hits, but it left me with an even bigger question - How on Azeroth do I get to Kalimdor? So I looked in the official site, but it seems it wasn't updated yet. Good thing we have WoWWiki to tell us that the boat was moved to Stormwind. So, yeah. That was a waste of time, running all the way to Menethil. /sigh

Dailies

Doing the dailies with Alierah got me thinking about several things. First, I was thinking about making a guide not so much on which quests are available or how to do them, but what order to do them in to save time. Not sure it's worth it, though, since most people (myself included) probably won't be doing them once Wrath hits.

The other thing is, it reminded me of a friend of mine. He doesn't play WoW, and every time the subject comes up he says something along the lines of "I already have a job, I don't need another one". Up until now, I could easily say that WoW wasn't work, but with dailies that's exactly what it is. Not only that, but it's work for virtual money**... So, I don't know. I'm not sure if I'll keep doing them or not.

Little Touches

The 3.0 patch notes were around the length of a regular novel, but still they did not include all the changes. Most of the things that didn't make it into the patch notes are things that don't really have much effect on most people, but are still nice. For example, boats and zeppelins now have crews. Some have vendors (or vending machines), and you can even repair there. I never liked the old "ghost ships", so personally I think that's just cool. And there are other small things like that. I don't remember them right now, but they're there, and I applaud Blizzard for taking time to put in these little touches even though they don't actually matter to 99.9% of the players.



* Yes, I know that with Inscription, herb prices should be really high right now. Still, I think I prefer Mining.

** I suppose you could say that all money is virtual. After all, the paper that bills are printed on isn't worth that much - its worth is determined by what you can obtain with it. In that sense, WoW gold does have value in that I can buy things in-game to (hopefully) make me happy. Still, it's not the same as real money.