The Big 6-0

The only thing between me and level 70 is bigger badder space boars!

That's right, everybody, a few days ago I hit 60. Woo! Go me! I have to say though that as it takes longer and longer to level it's starting to feel more like I'm running in place than making progress.

In any case, a number of important changes have accompanied the journey to level 60. Sacrifices have been made. Around level 55, I respecced from Shadow to Smiter, and had to give up mind flaying and turning purple. It took me a little while to get the hang of it, but I'm liking the Smiter build a lot, and ultimately, I think what I miss most about Shadow is spirit tap....which I totally forgot to put talent points into while respeccing. I also replaced Whitemane's Chapeau, which I loved dearly.

Dani took me to the Dark Portal and showed me around Outlands

The biggest change, hands down, is moving to Outlands. Woo, Outlands! See, the thing is that I have read about Outlands a lot (because I read about warcraft a lot), but since I have not leveled a character past 40 up till now, I had played through any of it. The novelty of exploring the crazy weirdness of it is sweet, but probably better is that the drops and quest rewards as miles above anything I have been wearing. For example, I'm am currently wearing pants whose item level is 33....and until I hit Outlands, that was kind of the norm. Go go upgrades.

Slapfight Sunday: Wholahay vs Sveren

Hey hey, loyal reader! You're in luck, because I've got another fantastic installment of Slapfight Sunday for y--what's that? It's Monday? Dude, I know it's Monday and that the damn slapfight is late, but I was hoping you'd play along. But NO NO NO, you had to go and rub it in, huh? Can't be late posting THIS ONE TIME - and you know, I had a rough night, but I guess that doesn't matter does it? Look, punk, you will be grateful that there EVEN IS A POST because BACK IN MY DAY we couldn't rely on such awesome entertainment, and if it's not appreciated, I will turn this blog around, SO HELP ME GOD, and leave you with only PBS to watch. For serious.

Ok, better? Good. Glad we understand each other. Let's just put that unpleasantness behind us, shall we? Great. Today's slapfight is a doozy, I tell you what. In a truly heartwrenching twist of fate, Wholahay and Sveren threw down in the snowy hills of Dun Morogh¹. And readers, doesn't it seem like only yesterday that this very pair was scampering through Darnassus on newly purchased mounts? Really, when you think about it, it's tragic - like something out of Shakespeare. But with more bitch slaps.

Oh, I should note that this took place during the Midsummer Fire Festival, and I would wager that the fire buffs that spontaneously combust throughout the duel probably also kept them warm enough to keep fighting. Theoretically.
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¹It should be noted here that Jon (the boyfriend) actually did wrestle in the snow in Minnesota in February in a shirts and skins style face-off. And he won too, just like his character did.

Slapfight Sunday: Sinead vs Squiddleton

You know what's awesome? Naked sissy slapfights, that's what. Yep, when I get bored I challenge my friends to a duel and then promptly strip down to my virtual skivvies and proceed to bitchslap the bejesus out of them. If you've never had the pleasure, I highly encourage you give it a shot. But, in case you're the kind that prefers to live vicariously through others (hey, no judgment!), every week I'll be posting a video of me slapfighting with someone naked set to inspiring montage-y rock music.

For the first edition, we have Sinead (my lvl 50 priest) vs. Squiddleton (my boyfriend's newly created lvl 5 paladin). In the lush forests of Azuremyst Island, the two squared off and slapfought as no two draenei had EVER SLAPFOUGHT BEFORE! See for yourself:

(I have to give mad props to that bird who swooped in and helped out though. It was totally touch and go there for a minute)

They grow up so fast!

the triumphant mounting of Sveren

Sorry for the multiple posts in one day, but it turns out I'm not the only one to hit a game-centric milestone. After hitting 50, I took a (in my opinion) much-deserved break from Sinead to play with my alts. While we were killing Kurzen bitches in Stranglethorn Vale, my boyfriend's night elf warrior Sveren dinged 40! I escorted him to Darnassus and loaned him a little gold to purchase his super-fantastic spotted saber and then we rode off into the sunset together. Isn't that nice?

I hit level 50!

I am inordinately proud of this for a few reasons. First, I can kind of start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now, like I'm closing the gap to level 70. Second, I finally picked up a 41 point talent! For some reason, this seems like an accomplishment. Third, it took me less than a week to go from 40 to 50, making the whole level-up-as-fast-as-you-can thing seem like a less Sisyphean task. Go me!

Maintenance Day

My near-pathological breakneck leveling pace has been halted briefly by maintenance day. As Blizzard toils away on my realm (and I always, for some reason, envision that this process is somewhat similar to getting your house fumigated for pests, what with the being unable to go into for a certain period of time and patches tha fix bugs and all...but maybe that's just me), I'll take the time to reflect on Sinead's whirlwind tour¹ of Azeroth so far.

Sometimes Azeroth seems like it's really in the Twilight Zone. I'm not talking about the inordinate number of zhevras that refuse to drop hooves (though they will kick the shit out of you with them) or the damaging effect the sheer number of predators in such close proximity to one another should have on the ecosystem. No, I'm talking about things like this:


It's half a cat! Sticking out of a mountain! The hell?! How did it get there? Where is it going - wait, can it even go anywhere? In the end, there's no answer to these questions, and you just have to saddle up and ride into the sunset.

I have to say that in leveling Sinead, I've learned a lot more about being dead. Don't get me wrong, I've died plenty of times on my alts, too, but this is (much to my chagrin, I remind you) a PVP server and the ganking is a constant danger. Long story short, after being ganked yet again - this time by a stealthed rogue who waited until I had a rock elemental down to around 15% health before leaping out and brutally killing me - I noticed that my ghost was emitting a weird sort of light.


See what I mean? I'm like a dead glowbug or something. It's actually kind of cool, and noticing it for the first time softened the ego blow of having been mercilessly ganked yet again.

Ok. I have one more for you, but I'm going to warn you now that it's...uh...not in the best of taste. Yeah, so, I was running around the badlands and turned to say something to Dani or Jon (the boyfriend) and when I turned back I realized that my elekk had gotten kind of hung up on a small tree. And the more I looked at it, the more it looked like the elekk was kind of humping the tree. Here, I made a video to show you what I mean:



See what I'm talking about? My mount is a total dendrophiliac! Wasn't expecting that, honestly, but hey, no judgment, right?

PS - we did something totally awesome, but as it was Dani's brainchild, I'm going to let her tell you all about it. Stay tuned!
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¹Ok, for some people out there in internetland, this may not actually constitute breakneck leveling speed. But for me it does, so make of that what you will.

Going for the gold

Dani got me hooked on warcraft pretty soon after she started playing. Unlike Dani, who had a certain single-mindednes of purpose, I didn't stop there: I became a fairly severe altoholic. I also became a carebear. Dani's server is PVP, and after my shaman, Wholahay, got ganked over and over and over one night in Ashenvale, frustration got the better of me and I transferred. Long story short, I finally stabilized at 4 primary characters on Mok'Nathal: two draenei (a shaman and a hunter) and two trolls (a hunter and a priest).¹ All was well in Azeroth.

Well, almost. You know how there are just some people who can get you to do things? Inexplicable things that you totally thought you would not ever do until BAM, there you are doing it? Well, for better or worse, Dani holds that eerie power over me. And she convinced me to reroll on her server and level to 70 ASAP. My thought process went something like this:

HELL NO! I am a CAREBEAR! Griefers can blow me....

....but I have been wondering about PVP lately....

....but I just got two of characters up to 40! I don't want to abandon them!

....but if you just leveled up super-fast you could be a healbot in fancy raids....

....and you'd have a new character to play....

...you could go create it right now....

....wouldn't that be fun?

So, in about half an hour, I completely folded and made Sinead, a draenei priest. That was about two weeks ago and I've been leveling here virtually nonstop ever since. I miss having alts to tool around with, and the total lack of other lowbie characters in our guild means I'm basically soloing 95% of the time. Which is also lame. But, I'm just bulldozing through the dark spots as fast as I can.

Good news is, I'm making progress! I just hit 40 this morning, and picked up shadowform and an elekk - which means I am now officially a badass. See?


Ok, back to the grindstone. But, before I go, I'll leave you with this video of Dani and I celebrating when my fancy new robes dropped in Scarlet Monastery:

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¹For some reason, I have weird preferences with characters. I can only play draenei or trolls. I tried other races, but they just don't feel quite right in some small way. And, I really prefer to play things with mana and ranged DPS capabilities. Melee makes me all flustered.

I haven't really been posting. For many reasons. One: I finished graduate school. Two: All my free time went to actually playing wow. Yes. Yes. It did in fact, eat my soul. Now, I'm sure you're asking how I went from freaking out while trying to kill boars to complete disappearance...

Well, let me tell you...

The game draws you in kind of like a good fisherman. If it pulled too hard too fast, you'd notice you were being reeled, and you'd flail like crazy until you got free. Too slow, and you'd be bored and swim away, trailing the line until it got free or didn't matter anymore. WoW? Oh, it starts slow.. a few hours here and there killing a boar or two, but then the "I wants" start.

The "I want"s come before the "I need"s. They are the stage of the game where you start to realize that there is more to life than your white or maybe if you're lucky green gear. The "I want"s are when you begin to realize that a little more time and practice means that you may actually... and get this... be good at this game sometime. Once you make that realization, you're hooked.

For me it started at about level 30. I was ambling along, and then it dawned on me: if I went a little faster, pushed a little harder, I'd get a mount! A mount is a little animal your toon rides on that makes you faster. And, well, once you're faster the endless running around the stupid map? WAY less tedious.

The mount became a shining star in my horizon. A beacon of a dream. "If only I had a mount" was the sentence I began to utter over and over again. And then it became my first solid painful goal. That's when the I needs started.

The I needs are when you're done. Toast. It's when you begin to plan time for WoW into your day. It's when your goals become part of your to do list. Let me illustrate. My day would look like this...

To Do:
1) Class
2) Homework
3) Eat
4) Get to the next WoW level so I am closer to my mount

And this was how it went. If I didn't make a level that day? I felt horrible. I'd stay up as long as I could, I'd fall asleep while playing, I'd push and run instance after instance. I needed a mount. I had to have a mount. Once I got a mount getting to 70 would be easy. And that's all I wanted, right? I just wanted to get to 70. Then things would calm down. I could play less once I got to 70. Just needed a mount.

But, my friends, let me warn you. The "I need"s never actually go away. They just layer and layer. Once I got the mount, it became an epic mount, and then 70 itself. Once you get to 70? The "I need"s reach their pinicle!

And this is where I am now.

You see, the "I want"s come back, of course. But now you need to want. If I want Mojo, the cute frog pet that hits on you when you kiss him, I *need* epic gear. And if I *need* epic gear, I *have* to run heroics. It goes around and around and around. I want, I need, I must, I have. And it keeps up until the game is no longer just a game.

You have work before you can have fun. The game becomes life.

So that, my dear readers, is where I've been. But don't worry, I have plenty to say now. Oh, plenty to say. And if you pay attention, I may just say it to you.

Also? Coming soon are some guest bloggers. Melissakins from her infamous knitting blog will be blogging here as well. Be excited. Be very very excited.