Embracing change

Icecrown

Toying around with the Eastern Kingdom and Kalimdor Loremaster feats has made me realize that my big goal has to include me getting allllll the Loremaster achievements giving me one big fat Loremaster achievement with title and tabard.  I’ve been trying to deny this.

I open my achievements panel and flip to Quests. I averted my eyes from the glaring hole that is Burning Crusade quests and looked over the Wrath section – the only one not completed is… Icecrown. 3/140. Three. I may as well, everyone bitches about this zone so I may as well just get it over with as quickly as possible. Hmmm I’m now just Friendly with the Knights of the Ebon Blade, I’ll run and grab the tabard quick. Or not. Since the tabard vendor is phased. SKHLGIKHGLHKSDJLFJlkjgflkjghlkghlghkljsflkjfjphasing.

Fine. Argent Vanguard it is. I head to camp and there’s a handful of quests. I work on those, fly clear across the zone, fly back, oh wait, fly back there again. I can’t imagine doing this without epic flying. I find myself flying so much that in order to keep it interesting, I indulge in some druid fun - playing chicken with the ground. Fly as hiiiiiiiigh as I dare, then drop flight form and fall…fall.. and fall until I can’t take it anymore and pop flight form again just before squishing on the ground. Ahh I love being a druid. God help me if I ever play another class with flight.

Hm, these Shadow Vault quests are kinda fun. Hmm you want me to duel some combatants!? YES I WILL! Keeping in mind that I keep about 18 useless quests that are somewhere between accepting and completing, I really only have about 7 spaces for active quests. Being this high maintenance is tiring sometimes. Burn banners! Yes, I can do that. Whee! I’m catching things on fire, I’m sticking banners in corpses… and before I know it, I’ve burned 2 hours and am sitting at 40/140 quests. I also made about 900g in that time. I AM LOVING ICECROWN. 

It’s so strange to me, I hate/d Burning Crusade with a well, Burning passion. I hated the newness, the strangeness, the change. I love Northrend. Maybe I’m just in a better spot to accept change in my real life, more flexible (my husband would disagree), who knows. But I am loving each zone! I think the only zone I’m not gaga over is Howling Fjord. I went back after leveling to 80 and finished up HFjord anyway but it’s not as interesting to me as the other zones. But Borean Tundra was so interesting, maybe it’s because I love the snow and cold weather. I’m glad I leveled there and just let the quests take me to the next zone up.

Ok, where was I? Druid chicken? No, that’s right - Icecrown. I can’t wait to steal away time this weekend and work on more quests. I’m literally in awe of some of the quests - and the way the zone changes. I finished up the quests for Crusader’s Pinnacle and am loving all of the changes. Yes, I’m LOVING CHANGE.

Retro Raiding, part 2

So I had previously mentioned a notion on the server about locking toons at level 60 when the patch hits and doing all the raids at level. Well, it’s looking more and more like a reality. As much as I’d like to take the easy route and play my rogue who is sitting at 60, I am just not a rogue anymore. I’m a healer. I’m a druid healer, but at the very least I’m a healer. My dwarf priest is 70, and obviously too high to participate in the 60 content. I have a dreanei priest at level 30 and I’m a crazy person but I’m leveling her to 60, hopefully in time for the patch. She is also my only enchanter so I’m kind of excited about leveling her. Flynch has been shelved for the time being in favor of getting my closest in level healer to 60 in time. A friend ran me through Uldamann last night and got me 1 level in about 25 minutes. I also got a few blues to DE (yay!) and a ring that I’ll eventually be able to equip.

Ulduar 10

Our 10 man group is still doing very well. Last night we made several attempts on Mimiron. We had our first person die to the bomb-frogger on the way, and even though we had a bunch of tweaks to make (we kept losing the MT during phase 1, people clipping the laser barrage, etc.) and completely learning phase 4, we were able to pull out a win, Stalwart style. During the evening, I lost both rolls on Druid tier token items - the helm and the shoulders. I did, however, win the Shoulderguards of Assimilation. Yay! Leather healy stuffs! The Mimiron win was so gratifying because we worked so hard and it required such teamwork. I hope they do well on Wednesday night, due to some RL issues I have to miss the raid.

Achievement Updates

I was able to finish my last cooking daily - EVER (I hope) - on Saturday and receive my Chef’s Hat. I have to say, I don’t notice any cooking speed increase. Is that on an upcoming patch and I assumed it was already live? Either way, it’s pretty silly to wear your Chef’s Hat when you’re questing in Icecrown. Oops. I should make better use of the Equipment Manager feature, eh?   I hope at some point they make a reason to do the cooking daily again.  I’m missing some outland recipes from those dailies.

My mini lan party for my birthday was a good time - we ran BRD and I got the achievement, finally haha. It was a good time all around, I had 3 50ish toons in tow and everyone got some good xp and good drops. One of the 3 was a good friend of my husband’s and I was pretty happy that we got him his very first epic drop (that he’s too low to use yet haha).

Last night during our 10 man, we also got the Don’t Stand in the Lightning achievement, which was a nice surprise. I think those are my favorite achievements - the ones you don’t expect : ) The mimiron kill also gave me The Keepers of Ulduar achievement.

All in all - a great weekend for me for achievements and having fun with real life friends in the game. Now to put my nose to the grindstone and get my baby priesty to 60. And soon.

Loremaster Quest, Officially Underway

 

Eastern Kingdom

Well, Friday night I found myself with some extra playtime so I thought I’d go ahead and dig into questing in Ye Olde Worlde.  I started in the Dwarf area, making sure I had completed quests in Kharanos, the lil camp over by Gnomeregan, the Quarry that is on the way to Loch Modan, and then checked both Gates.  I had missed a quest in the quarry, and a couple in the North Gate area.  I finished those up and moved into Loch Modan and Thelsamar.  I knew I had a quest in Thels that would take me to the Badlands but I was hoping to stick to a natural progression, as if I were leveling again.  Yeah, that didn’t happen… SHINY EXCLAMATION POINT OMG.  So, I knocked off a few quests in the Badlands that I had not done yet and moved to the Wetlands. 

Nothing missed in the Wetlands, which surprised me because I hate hate hate the Selma’s Ooze bag quest because I can never get those rat bastards to drop it for me.  I guess it had at some point, because she had no quest for me.  Then I got to Thandol Span.  I was a bit excited because there were 2 quests that I knew I hadn’t done and had never done on ANY of my toons (grumbles something about alts…).  The quest from the dwarf on the broken part of the bridge and the waterlogged letter.  Well, I missed the jump to the dwarf and was so busy cursing myself that I forgot to look for the letter.  Sigh.

So, Aquatic Form GO!  I swam to Faldir’s Cove and went allll the way back to the bridge.  Yay!  I made the jump, got the quest… and oh, right.  The letter.  So, I dove into the water, found it after a few minutes of searching (ok a few minutes of searching and alt tabbing out to check wowhead for the coordinates).  Got it and then… yes, swam back to Faldir’s Cove… Ugh.  I had a ton of quests that I had not done in Southshore, like 5.  5 = a ton. 

I had started the evening at 573/700 EK and finished at 600/700.  Whee!  Saturday afternoon I knocked off a couple quests from either Ironforge or Stormwind, I forget.  I have a toddler so I’m lucky that I can remember to turn any of these quests in… Somehow I ended up at 604/700.

Kalimdor

I had zero intention of doing any questing in Kalimdor until I was much further along in EK.  One of the quests that I picked up in either Stormwind or Ironforge sent me to Theramore.  Hmm a few exclamation points.  I’ll just do these real quick.  I don’t remember Theramore being a hot bed of activity. 

When the hell did Theramore become the hot bed of activity?!

Honestly, I haven’t ever EVER gotten so lost in the story and lore of questlines like I did in Theramore/Dustwallow Marsh.  I was practically racing to the next quest to find out what happened next.  I was joyously trampling along through the swampy areas, over hills, bumping into things here and there.  So many quests!  My Sunday was lost to questing in Theramore/Dustwallow.  I started the weekend at 423/700… I am now sitting at 485!!!!!!!!!!!  What in the world!  I still have a few that I need to do there, but I was starting to get a little sore just sitting at the computer (so I open my blog to you know, sit at my computer).  I’m amazed… totally.  Who would have thunk it!?  Theramore!  And actually, I am really tempted to level my next closest alt to the zone just to do them again! 

This is not like me, ask anyone who knows me.  I don’t read quest text, I barely even know where I’m going when I quest because I don’t read it.  I had a blast! 

I guess there’s a point to Loremaster anyway….

Epic, the sleazy way

It was a busy weekend for achievements for me. My assignment in the aforementioned “Get that Achievement” Game was to complete the Empire of Zul’Drak. When I started, I was something like 40/100. Ugh. I started in on Saturday afternoon while my little one napped, and by the time he woke up I was about 50/100. I finished another 47 quests that night before bed, ending at 97/100 and having no clue where to start looking for the missing 3. I had already looked on wowhead for quests in ZD and also for “this item starts a quest” and I had done those 3 already. I have a not-so-great memory so looking at a list of quests that are available to me doesn’t really help because I don’t always remember if I had done it, or just read about it. So I woke up Sunday morning with a bit of dread about finding the 3 quests I needed and while in Dalaran, I saw the notice about Wintergrasp starting up soon. I hopped in a raid and joined the fun and completed a couple quests - OOooo! I now had enough to get a Black War Mammoth! Finally. I don’t instance much so I didn’t have a ton of the Stone Keeper Shards so this was a bit exciting for me.

Now - enough stalling. Time to finish my assignment. I tried a new technique - which is now my new favorite for finishing a zone of quests. I headed to Zul’Drak and looked at the map to see which hub I don’t recall doing much in. Well that didn’t help so I started in the upper left corner, Thrym’s End, found a random mob and then looked it up on wowhead to see if it was part of a quest. I didn’t remember killing these things before so maybe that was my missing part. Wowhead didn’t have it listed but I killed one anyway, and when I moved in to loot it I got close enough to see 2 exclamations on the east side of my mini map. I almost screamed out loud. Surely one of these 2 would have a follow up and that would be my missing 3. So I picked up the quests, headed to the Crusader Forward Camp and got my achievement! The quests seemed really fun and since I was already there, I decided to finish up the quest chains there. Wow, controlling that big guy Gymer was so fun! I was picking up mobs and throwing them around - RAWWWR! So fun! So I finished that quest and upon turning it in, I see this mob patrolling and I thought, well he looks different. Yup! A rare! Whee! That netted me Northern Exposure!

Took a run out to Sholazar to do the fishing daily and pick up another egg. Yeah, I forgot to pick up the egg - I hate it when I do that. I checked the Oracles daily - I’m only missing one for Savior of the Oracles. Since I can get the egg now, there’s no rush for me to hit Exalted right now so I just do Oracle dailies when I feel like it, and on the off chance I’ll get the Wind and Water quest. So I go and check and sure enough, the daily is the one I’m missing : ) Happy girl! The quest was fun, but I’m not sure I’d do it again without a really good reason. So on turn-in, I got the achievement and that’s about the time I forgot to get my egg.

I hopped over and checked my bank alt to see how my auctions were going. I had picked up a ton of greens, some blues, and frostweave cloth when I was questing (not to mention about 1200g just from quest money). Quite a bit of it was selling already so I figured I’d pick up a pet or something reasonable from the Auction House as a reward for me since I had knocked out the achievement assignment quicker than I thought. I had been doing some pvp and since I’m still trying to figure out the Equipment Manager, I was messing with that and getting my boomkin and resto sets saved. I moved my trinket from 10 man Ulduar from one slot to the other and got the Epic Achievement. How cheap. I feel so dirty, I didn’t do anything to earn it because I only have 1 trinket ilevel 213 or higher. To kinda cleanse me of this, I headed to Ironforge to check out the pets on the Auction House. I picked up the brown rabbit, which I was surprised I didn’t already have, and one other (I can’t remember which hehehe) and got the 50 pet achievement. I got my skunk from my mailbox and ended up logging for the night. 5 achievements plus 1 dirty achievement for one weekend was pretty damned good : )