The End is Also the Beginning

Six and a half years ago, I installed a video game.  I walked into it with no idea what to expect, with only a single friend (that I knew from a forum) to guide me through it.  That was a beginning.

Tonight, I sit here, looking at my monitor, watching the accumulated horde of crap that I have saved since Vanilla sell on the Auction House.  I flip between my two bank toons and my main, then my main alt.  Each flip gives me more gold and each minute brings me closer to the time I will log off.  I've hunted down my heirloom pieces, I've gathered mats for bags.  I wrote the single in game mail that I will send to the single person who this will probably surprise.  This is an ending.

Tomorrow, I transfer my main from Madoran to Blade's Edge.

I've left a lot of servers over the years.  My first Alliance server, where my friends had pretty much all stopped playing or transfered off.  My first Horde server, where my guild all took the free realm transfer (and thus brought me to Madoran).  My second Alliance server, where the guild drama drove my husband and myself back to Madoran.  But, as you can see, it was to Madoran that we came and to Madoran that we built ourselves a home.

I have history here.  And while it wasn't always good, it was my history.  I learned to play here.  Karegina was raised here (however, she was born on Aggramar) and my husband's first Horde toons were created here.

Over the evening, both my husband and I have started typing things into guild chat.  But neither of us can tell the remaining guild that we're leaving.  The words just won't come.  I don't know what I would say to these people.  "So long and thanks for all the fish"?  And we're not completely leaving, we're only taking our mains out.  However, since those are our babies, we are taking our hearts away.

Tomorrow, I will log on my bank alts, transfer what gold I have left to my druid and then server transfer her away.  And it will be a beginning.

Elders and Leveling

Today, the husband and I are working on getting our Elders on two of our other characters.  While I'm not 100% sure of his motivation, my motivation is the lantern pet for my main.  We just finished up Kalimdor and the related Cata/dungeon elders, so we started working on Eastern Kingdom.  We started in Booty Bay and headed north.

Now, despite my 'Xtreme Leveling', I don't do a lot of leveling via RDF.  However, I did a lot of dungeon running back in the day when you had to find a group on your server and walk there.  (Because no one had mounts!)  So, when I got to the Sunken Temple elder, boy was I surprised!!  The instance portal is like RIGHT THERE!  And there is no 'Which way do we go first'!!  It's just there!  I was very surprised with those changes.

In other news, I still have some sort of plague.  It hasn't spread to the husband (yet) but it totally snuck up on me!  One of the things it's done is turned my sense of direction off.  I'm totally running into walls, mountains and shit.  More then usual!

Also, in guild searching news, it appears that the husband and I have found a new home.  We've been speaking to a specific guild since Friday and I'm very excited about it.  He seems to be excited too, but you never can tell with husband.  We're making plans to take our heirlooms when we transfer so we can level up new characters.  We don't have the money to transfer all our toons.  (That's $250 just for my 85s/almost 85s!)  I'll probably transfer my priest in a few months.  She has some things on her that I don't want to give up!

Seeing people leaving and going about their business else where is hard.  Even knowing that I'm doing the same is hard.  I'm not good at saying good bye to things.  However, I am not completely leaving.  Madoran has been my home for over 5 years now.  However, there is always RealId.  So at least I can keep in touch with my friends that way!  Of course, those people who don't use it, well that will be sad.  I'll miss my little rogue friend.  She is amazing and I love her.  Been playing with her for years now!

While I was writing this post, my shaman got her Elders title.  Only 6 more world events to go until she gets her drake.  Hehehe!  (This will never happen, I hate Children's Week too much!!)

I've been trying to find an ending for this post for two days.  So I'll just leave it with this: tomorrow I'll have an update on my 2012 in 2012.  With one thing and another, I haven't been able to go look at all my characters, nor add my new characters to my list.  (This is because of our server search, we have a couple different toons on a few other servers now.)  So look for that!

And now what?

I am home sick today.  I came home from work yesterday around 1ish, went to the doctor and found out that 1. my MRI was normal so they don't know what's causing my headaches and 2. I do not have strep throat.  And with that pronouncement, my sore throat went lower and turned into a HORRIBLE cough that causes me to do things I am not comfortable talking about.  However, I do sound like a diesel truck revving up.  So maybe this will attract some country boys?  (Just an option if husband ever leaves!!)

And so, today I got up around 10am, grabbed a bowl of peaches and some water and sat down at my computer to get my rogue those goddamn daggers.  My guildmate (who is about the sweetest girl ever) linked me to this video to get through the city.  She also wrote up a bit huge long list for us to get through it with.  With a second by second guide.

And with that guide, it took me .... 3 hours to get to that dickface Creed.  Where I proceeded to spend over 2 hours more dying to him before I even got him down 10%.  However, I can stealth my way through Gilneas like a freaking PRO bitches.  I don't even have to pause half the time.  I just fly stealth right through there! BAM!

I have got dual spec and made it a sub spec to see if that helps.  Honestly, I think I just need to get her some better gear before I try this.  Either that or have someone standing outside who can buff me as needed.

And also, in a different vein, I am looking for a new guild.  I believe my husband will be coming with me, but he's not really doing a lot right now to show that.  However, it is hard to find a guild that fits what I want.  I don't want 25's and I want to stay Horde.  So, yeah. wish me luck.  I do have a couple feelers out but I don't know what husband thinks.  I'm half afraid he's just going to quit WoW completely.  And I'm not ready for that yet!!

Shared Topic Jan 23rd - 29th Expressing your Geekery!

How do you express your geekery? Do you own obvious paraphernalia like a Horde-symbol bumper sticker, in-joke tshirts like the dps/ups pun, or less obviously related items like a gift from a guildie? Rather than physical indicators, do you mix nerd lingo into your everyday speech or talk/post about geekdom in non-nerd spaces? How do you advertise your nerd tendencies? Does it help you to attract new nerd friends?

Today's Shared Topic comes from Akabeko, author of red cow rise.  And this is right up my ally.

I have a Horde symbol on the back of my mini van.  I've had it for years now and I love it.  I don't have a good picture here with me, but here's a picture of it from this summer.  (I took a picture of my garage and it happened to be in the background).

Just recently, I got a ring to express my resto druid-ness.  I really like it and only take it off to sleep/shower.  It's basically a replacement for the wedding ring that I lost 4 years ago.  (Give or take a year.)

I also have the epic druid shirt from J!nx as well as a shirt that says "I logged out for this?".  I have purchased a Horde hat for my husband as well as a couple shirts.  (I can't link all the ones he has, he's got one from Maintankadin, one from J!nx, one from Blizzcon, etc.)  I'm almost always 'representing' in one way or another!

As far as nerd lingo, my group of friends are always throwing WoW terms around, mostly because we all either played or currently play the game.  (The exception to that is my husband's coworker, his wife and our other friend's girlfriend.)

I have gotten my mother to start saying "L2Blah".  My grandmother knows what epic is.

As far as attracting new people, I live and work in a small town.  It is hard to get to know anyone here since there is nothing really that happens after hours and I don't like to go to the bars.  I have gotten a few people to shout at me "For the Horde" or "F the Horde".  It's pretty exciting.

I'd like to get a sticker for my car that says "My other mount is a windrinder" or something.  I'm just like that.  I wear my faction pride all over myself.  Lok'tar Ogar!

What's up doc?

Monica: Pheebs, you remember how we talked about saying things quietly to yourself first?

Phoebe: Yes, but there isn't always time!

That's from a Friend's episode from the first season.  And it's pretty much what happens to me often.  So, this is going to be hard to write.  However, I want to give an update on my 2012 in 2012.  But I don't want to just say "I leveled X alt for Y levels" since that doesn't really explain a lot.  So, let's see how I do here.

My husband says that I've been slowly heading toward rock bottom for a couple of months now.  My bipolar disorder, which despite a few flare ups when my medications stopped working properly, has been almost completely 'under control' for the last 2 or 3 years.  However, this summer, one of my medications started giving me a side effect that I could not just over look.  So, the doctor weened me off it and put me on lithium.

At first I seemed to be doing okay, but then, in November, I snapped.  I can't remember what happened or anything but I know I was seriously depressed and the doctor's assistant (the doctor was on vacation) raised my dosage of all my medications to try and make me stable.  Shortly after, I got a headache.  And I am pretty sure I've mentioned that I still have this headache. (On the 30th, it will be 2 months of this headache.)

Anyway, my doctor was unwilling to try and adjust my medication while I had a headache.  So (as my husband says) I've not been medicated properly since about August.  And that is affecting my attitude in a very negative way.

Needless to say I have not (and am not) a pleasant person to be around.  And I get wrapped up in my own head and forget that there are other people around me.

So, that brings us to now.  Some stuff went down this past Friday (as Twitter knows) and as a result, I have been either unable or unwilling (depends on the way my mood flows at that moment) to spend time on my 'home' server.  So, I've been spending my time on my alts that I have scattered through the different servers.

My draenei shaman that I picked up the last time I was hurting got from level 53 to level 60 with minimal playing time. I also made a tauren priest on a completely new server to level with the husband.  We're going to see how long it takes us to get to 85 without heirlooms or anything.  My character made 20 gold by signing a guild charter, so I have a nice little 'nest egg' at the moment.  This priest just reached level 12 and we're currently debating where to go.  I'd like to go to Silverpine because you can totally reach exalted with Undercity that way.

Leveling by yourself on a server where you know no one is lonely.  RealId can only go so far and honestly, since I can't do any outreach on my own, I don't get anyone talking to me.

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” - Isaac Asimov

This quote, to me, is so true.  I can't think through things until I write them down.  So, I've been doing a lot of writing over the past few days.  Most of it in my private journal, most of it in emails to friends who are completely unrelated to this situation.

I have written and deleted this last paragraph about 10 times.  I can't find a way to wrap this up that won't cause problems down the line for others.  So instead, I'll leave you with part of the refrain from Stroke 9's Washin' + Wondering song.

These are my hands, these are my faults
These are my plans
These are my nasty little thoughts
I wrote 'em down for you to contemplate
At a later date

Sexy Plate Pirate Outfit - by my beloved husband

My husband plays a blood elf female.  In fact, all of his characters are females, with the exception of his druid, his death knight and his warlock.  He says he'd much rather look at a pretty behind for the time that he's playing then anything else.  So, when transmog came out, he started building a set for his paladin.

Note, none of these items are specific for paladins.  They are all plate and are not Horde specific.  Aka, you can slut up a warrior just as well!

The base for this set is the Bloodscale set from Outlands.  He didn't keep good notes (as he didn't know I'd write a post about it) so all he can tell me is he farmed these items up off the AH and out of Blood Furnace (both normal and heroic).

For the legs, you will want the Bloodscale Legguards.
For the boots, you will want Bloodscale Sabatons.
For the chest, you will want Bloodscale Breastplate.
For the hands, you will want Bloodscale Gauntlets.

Now, for the other pieces ...

The shoulders are the Pauldrons of Swift Retribution.  They drop off Nexus-Prince Shaffar in Heroic Mana Tombs.  He got them the first try.  He says they have a 18% drop rate.

The belt (aka 'belly chain') is the Belt of the Fallen Emperor.  This drops in AQ40 from Emperor Vek'nilash, aka one of the Twins.  He also lucked out here and got it the first try.

The head piece (aka the eye patch) is the Crimson Beholder Eye.  This is a drop off a rare called Collidus theWarp-Watcher in Shadowmoon Valley.  This is a beholder type mob (go figure).

The shield is the Shield of the Wayward Footman.  This is a random blue BOE.  It drops off mid-60's mobs.  J found it on the AH apparently.  He tried to farm it from Old Hillsbrad Foothills (normal and heroic).

Now. You will note there isn't a picture of the back.  This is because J believes that melee characters should not have a cloak, as it's just something someone can grab onto in the heat of battle.

For a weapon to go with this, you can use something like Bloodskull Destroyer or Syphon of the Nathrezim.  Both of these are maces however, and he doesn't usually use them.  And if you are a holy pally, get Tempest of Chaos.  He can't use that since it's a 'main hand' weapon.  One a 'one hand' weapon.  (This is why there isn't a weapon transmog link for him.  He didn't transmog it!)

And Cynwise, is this enough skin for you?

Finally ...

This weekend was hard.  Parts were good and parts were okay.  Nothing was really bad but it was hard.  Why?  I didn't get enough sleep.  Today, I'm at work, feeling like a zombie.  Well, a cranky zombie who would like to gnaw on your head instead of talk to you.  So, I guess that's a normal zombie.

Just a warning, there is a massive description of my weekend below.  But the WoW part is at the end.

Friday night, I stayed up until late, 2 am, which never happens anymore.  However, I got up at 6am to go to breakfast with my husband's godfather (whom he had never met).  Then at 9am, I had a 12 step meeting (long story).  Then I came home around 10:30am and made a Orange Cranberry Upsidedown Cake which is vegan and gluten free.  (Mine wasn't vegan, I used butter.  But whatever!)  I left the house at about 11:30am for a party at my best friend from high school's.  Then I came back home at 3pm only to find that the party I thought started at 4pm actually said 3pm on the invites so people were there and I WASN'T READY!  /panic  By 7:30pm I was exhausted and just ready to pass out.  Everyone left around 8:30ish and I was in bed and asleep by 10:30pm.

Saturday, I slept in but felt groggy as hell and my head was pounding like someone was physically hitting me.  I got up, started cleaning up the kitchen and got some laundry started.  Then I farmed for pieces of my Red Riding Hood outfit on my priest, stopping only around 12:30pm to get dressed and ready so I could go to my in-law's and learn how to use my new phone.  We ended up watching football and I laughed while my Giants kicked the asses of my in-law's & husband's Packers.  Then we came home and my husband went to bed with a headache.  Really?  REALLY?  There was no sympathy in our house that night.  He went to bed early and I stayed up until 3am farming for my Red Riding Hood outfit.

Monday was a holiday for me, so I was going to sleep in.  However, the goddamn cat woke me up when husband left at 7:30am.  So I got up, ate breakfast, farmed some more, getting every piece but my belt and my shoulders, and got ready to go.  At 10am, I was in town getting my nails done.  At 11am, I was at the tire place getting the tires rotated.  I also got the oil changed and was told that the plug in the oil thing is messed up.  I also told a little later that one of our tires had a screw in it and we can't just repair it, we need a whole new tire.  Argh.

Then I grabbed some lunch, dropped off a box of books at the used book store (got $50 in instore credit) and went grocery shopping.  I was done by 2:40pm which was just in time for a doctor's appointment.  Then, I was home by 3:30pm.  Where I spent half a hour unloading the car and putting away half the groceries.  Then I took off to pick up my best friend from work and feed the office cat.  Got home again at about 5:30, found my last piece of transmog gear on the AH and started dinner.

So, you would think that I would want to go to bed after dinner, since I got little sleep for the last little while (except for Saturday night) but NO!  I wrote the previous post and hopped into a dungeon with my guildies and we capped my valor points on my main.  Then I switched toons to Lil Red Riding Hood.  This was my first time really doing anything 'current' on her since Wrath.  We did the 5 man Dragon Soul instances and I got some nice upgrades for her.  I got a JP ring, and then a ton of quest rewards (a hat, a ring, a wand, a belt and an offhand that I'm only keeping for transmog purposes).  It was so fun.

I had forgotten how to disc priest so End Time was messy and hectic and there were many deaths.  People were butt pulling left and right (this includes my tank husband) and I had to figure out how to smite heal again.  By the time we were at Hour of Twilight, I had gotten my rhythm down and was going at it.  Plus the upgrades probably helped too.  My ilevel is now 369 equipped!

So, I'm so happy that I got a chance to run those dungeons.  It was awesome fun and I loved it.  However, I didn't get to bed until 11pm and then the husband got me up at 6am to exercise so ugh.  Was so worth it though.  Love my disc priest!!

Asmini's Little Red Riding Hood Transmog

So. Cymre posted a 'Fairy Tales' transmog series on her blog the other day.  And my head instantly went 'BOING!'  As all my friends know, I love (to an unholy degree) all fairy tales.  There are some I don't like as much but over all given the choice between a normal book and a book about fairy tales, I will take the fairy tales.  Same with movies, tv shows, etc.  (I love me some Erstwhile!)

So, I looked over the offerings that she posted and started planning out my Lil Red Riding Hood outfit.  Not a partial one like she posted, which I think was just cloak, hood, robe, boots, and bracers, but the whole thing.

This is what I came up with.

As you can see, I have the traditional hood and cloak, a beautiful sleeveless white robe, a pair of red shoulders to match the cloak, white bracers to match the robe, fingerless gloves and a belt that is NOT a WWE belt.  Plus, I found a staff to use to walk along the path and a lantern to light my way through the dark woods.  And, as you can see, I have the Big Bad Wolf with me too.  (Well, maybe cute and cuddly wolf is better.)  My transmog outfit isn't complete, I'm not happy with my belt but I will get a better one.  For now, I'm just happy that it's not a WWE belt.

So, to do this you'll need the follow things:

1. The ability to run some BC dungeons and raids.
2. Someone with tailoring
3. The ability to not pull your hair out while running the needed dungeons over and over and OVER again while you wait for the drops to happen.
4. Either the ability to go do quests for 2 of the items or know where to find the drops.

This was really simple for me actually.  I have 2 bank toons with banks full of low level crap that just begs to be used.  So, let's start with the drops and craftables.

Back - There are 3 cloaks you can use for the red cloak.  I used Vengeance Wrap, which is a BOE crafted one from tailoring.  I spent probably 2 hours farming up 14 Primal Air for it.  But soooo worth it.  You can also get one off Prince Malchezaar in Karazhan called Ruby Drape of the Mysticant or the actual Red Riding Hood's Cloak which drops off The Big Bad Wolf during the Opera event.  (I didn't get it off there on my 1 time through so I made it.  Because I'm impatient!)

Head - Cowl of the Grand Engineer which drops off Void Reaver in Tempest Keep.  Our first time in there looking for this and it dropped.  But, I just want to say that if you are the only ranged and you're two manning it, be prepared to move a lot and/or get silenced often.

Shoulder - Consortium Mantle which is a BOE green that comes in a lot of different stats (ie of the Whale, etc).  I farmed a number of places for one of these but managed to find one on the AH for 3 gold.  Total steal!

Robe - Mooncloth Robe - This is a tailoring BOE.  You get the pattern in Dire Maul.  If you go in with a group, note that there is only 1 pattern on the NPC (according to Wowhead. I didn't go look, I made my best friend's husband make all my tailoring requirements on this, except the actual cloth).

Bracers - There are two bracers you can use, either Wraps of Purification off Hydross the Unstable in Serpentshrine Cavern or Bands of Indwelling off Maiden of Virtue in Karazhan.  I actually got the Wraps off of Hydross.

Hands - These were tough.  It was hard to find a decent looking glove that didn't cover up the bracers.  However, the Shadowy Laced Handwraps off Baroness Anastari in Stratholme did the trick!

Belt - my desired belt is the Cincture of Will off Terestian Illhoof in Karazhan, but that sucker didn't drop it.  So right now I am wearing my PVP belt, Bloodthirsty Embersilk Belt.  Yes, the blue quality 'intro to PVP' belt.

Feet - I went a different way from Cymre here, I got the Red Woolen Boots made because the tips are white!

My companion pet is the Worg Pup that is a drop from Quartermaster Zigris in LBRS!

As for my weapon and off-hand, I got those through quests.  Luckily, I was only sitting at 62 out of 86 quests in Hellfire so I was confident I could get my lantern!  And of course, she hadn't done any of the old world quests so I was able to get that easily too!

Weapon - My priest has a 1 handed mace, so I used Chopped Off Ancient Limb, which is from one of the first quests you get in Azshara for the Horde.  It shares a model with Giant Club which is a drop.

Off-Hand - Deep Core Lantern which is a quest reward from the poop quest in Hellfire Peninsula.

The one thing that was indispensable while doing this was the add-on called "MogIt".  The husband installed it when he was looking for an outfit for his pally and he made me install it so I wouldn't keep asking him.  Apparently I bother him.  Go figure!!

So, thanks so much for the inspiration Cymre!  I'm going to enjoy this!!

2012 in 2012

As the leveling fool that I am, I decided to accept the leveling challenge that JD Kenada has issued for this year.  What you do is gain 2012 levels during this year.  There are some guidelines that he wants us to follow and bam!  I'm off.


The only thing is, right now I have two accounts.  I was up front with him about this and I explained to him that my level 85's are split across these accounts pretty evenly.  He said that was okay and he'd work with me so I can participate!  Yay!


So, here is what I have right now, without toon names or servers:


85 tauren druid
85 goblin mage
85 undead rogue
84 troll death knight
76 undead warlock
74 goblin warrior
62 goblin shaman
42 tauren paladin
41 dwarf priest
17 blood elf priest
76 night elf druid
72 human mage
61 gnome rogue
56 draenei priest
53 draenei shaman
40 draenei paladin
30 gnome warlock
13 dwarf hunter
13 worgen warlock
5 gnome warrior
69 dwarf death knight
12 draenei warrior
7 gnome mage
19 worgen priest
6 worgen druid
11 night elf druid
5 blood elf paladin
5 human hunter
16 goblin warlock
6 troll druid
9 blood elf warlock
85 blood elf priest
85 blood elf paladin
85 orc shaman
80 blood elf hunter
70 troll warlock
50 orc mage
48 worgen warrior
34 troll druid
41 tauren priest
58 draenei death knight
7 dwarf shaman
43 gnome priest
4 worgen warlock


Add that together, subtract the needed amount for the extra death knights and I have 1787 as of today.  (According to my spreadsheet of characters!)  This means I'm 88.8% done.  And I'll be gaining another 32 just in leveling the rest of my 10 toons to 85.  Yay!


I'd plan more but I'm completely exhausted.  Yay!  Levels!!

Distractions!

So, in my last post, I got completely distracted from a couple things I wanted to say by a recruitment post.  Oops!

In my raid group, we have lot of people who have a number of alts.  Our shadow priest just got one of each class to 85.  (Note, all of them are blood elves, except her shaman (goblin) and druid (tauren).)  So, when we decided to stop after downing Hagara, everyone was asked if they wanted to bring in their rogue alt before we killed her.  So, myself, our sub pally tank, and our shadow priest flipped to our alts and went came into raid to pick pocket Hagara.  The funny part about all this?  If you try to pick her pocket right after someone else, it says her pockets have been picked.

So, our shadow priest's rogue and I are standing behind Hagara and suddenly FAN OF KNIVES!  And the shadow priest's rogue lies dead at my feet.  I started to laugh, tried to pick Hagara's pocket and lo, there was the ring.  So the husband ressed our shadow priest and she goes back in to try to pick the pockets again, not knowing that I already did.  So she ends up dead again.  Poor girl.

So, now, 10K lighter in gold, my rogue will end up with really nice daggers so I can go BACK to assassination.  (I went combat from 81-85 since I lost my heirloom daggers at that point.)

This weekend, I think I'll finish up my death knight to 85 and see about getting my warrior to 80.  Then I need to ask the husband what he wants to level next.  He might pick his rogue.  Which would be fun.  If I can get my troll warlock to 80 and my warrior to 80, I'll only have to level everyone through the Cata zones!  Right now, everyone is at least in Wrath zones, except my 'extra' alts that I like to play.

Also, I'm resisting the siren call of my Alliance toons.  I want to go level them a bit but ugh. I just can't get over there!!

Anyway, last night we went back through Firelands and managed to clear the entire place in 2 hours.  Which is really good for us.  We pugged two people (a hunter and a holy pally that used to be in our guild) and I went boomkin.  Much to the holy pally's disappointment apparently.  Heh.  But. I got to boom.  I wasn't great and while I was at the bottom of the pack, I was still above the tanks. I did between 15K-19K depending on the fight.  Some of them I did really little because I wasn't flying around or I was unsure what to do :)  And this whole avoiding vent for my headache is really sucky.

And now, I'll spend some time working on labels for my posts.  Yay!

Couple of things ...

Last night was raid night.  As it is every Wednesday night, except for holidays.  And we were short people.  Again.

This time it was a warlock we were missing (he's got RL aggro) and a death knight (who cancelled his subscription but didn't tell anyone until someone said HEY! DK! Are you okay??).  We begged our other pally tank to stay up late and come tank for us but that only filled 1 spot.  So we raided Dragon Soul with 9 players for the first 4 bosses.

Our raid team at this point is pretty much the same week after week.  However, if some one gets sick or get hurt or has a family emergency or is just exhausted and at the end of their rope, we have no one to 'sub' in.  The idea of 'subs' boggle my mind.  Since forming Ascension in 2008, we have rarely RARELY ever had enough people to form a full 25 or 10 man.  As my favorite resto shaman says "Ascension, trying to raid since 2008".  It's exhausting.  If we were trying to do 25's, I'd probably have quit by now.

I just took an 'inventory of our guild via our webpage.  We have 10 people raiding, we have 1 person who can come in and raid as needed if they don't have to work early in the morning.  We have 5 who are active but won't raid and 1 who is active but not level capped.  Then we have 15 inactive players.  Mostly friends and family.

What does this mean?  Well, it means we need to recruit.  However, the pool of 'talent' on our server is pretty light.  So that means we have to do something to shine enough to attract someone off server.  And honestly, I just don't know how to do that.  As Vidyala wrote yesterday, recruiting and being the leader of a guild is hard.  My guild leader tried for years to pick our guild up off the ground and get it fly but it seemed that people didn't want to.  They wanted to just to do enough get by, not to excel.

However, we're now down to 10 people.  And they want to see the content and move forward.  They're getting burned out and while running LFR is great, it's not the same as seeing the content with your guild (so I've heard, I'm still a LFR virgin).

So.  If you or someone you know is looking for a guild, Ascension is recruiting.  Let me give you a little blurb about us.

Ascension was formed in October 2008, just before the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.  We are a guild formed by a bunch of real life friends who wanted to raid their own way.  While some of us have moved on, the core is still made up by 5 of the original members.  Our guild leadership has passed to Shonokoko, who is an awesome resto shaman and a wonderful person.  She's my best friend and I'd do anything for her.  Our healer 'core' is myself and her, while our 'tanks' are my husband, Paliclaus and either Awnia (who is our sub tank) or Alama (a prot warrior, who at this point is fury-ing up the world).  We have some wonderful ranged dps in the form of Bachue (with a funny e. She's a shadow priest), Kahlanah (a warlock of some flavor, it changes daily), Pyrodoom (fire mage, in a big blue dress) and Nightimes (another warlock of some flavor).  Our melee is Indale (a rogue) and Zaraing (a unholy DK).  This is who we have left and I know that they would love to see more people joining us.

We have been struggling with attendance issues since Cata hit.  As such, we barely got into BWD/TotW/BoT before the nerf.  We did manage to down all the (normal) bosses before we moved into Firelands, where we did manage to down Ragnaros after the nerf but before Dragon Soul came out.  We are currently 5/8 and were able to do 4/8 with 9 people!!

We are a Horde guild on Madoran which is a Central time server.  We raid at 9pm server time and go until 12:30am.  Our guildies are scattered all over the country but a bunch of us are West Coast.  (Hence the late start time, some of us don't get home until raid time some nights.)

We don't have a lot of people on during the day but generally there are people on in the evenings.  If you want to talk, you can roll a toon and talk to anyone in the guild.  If they don't know, they can point you to one of the officers.  My husband and myself are almost always on in the evenings in one form or another.

Or you can go to our website and check it out.  As for recruitment needs, we're pretty much looking for anything.  Ranged, caster, melee, tank, even a healer.  If we get a healer that wants to heal full time, I can go boomkin and blow shit up!  I don't care.  I just want to raid!

Okay. Recruitment blurb over.  I also have another question.  I'm a complete noob when it comes to blogging.  And I know that not everyone does what I do and goes to each page on a daily basis to see if there is a new post.  I heard there's Google Reader or something.  Is that any good?  Can I get it on my phone?

Help.  I'm lost and confused in the big wide world!  And now, I'd best get to work.

There are no new players of WoW ... or are there?

World of Warcraft has been out for over 7 years now.  And a good deal of the gamer population has played it at one point or another.  Sometimes it feels like everyone and their mother (and grandmother and sister and brother and grandfather and 3rd cousin twice removed) have played this game for a while, if not recently then in the 'distant WoW past, like 2005 or 2006.

However, this weekend, while my husband and I were leveling YET ANOTHER pair of toons, we came upon this elusive creature known as "The WoW Noob".  This player, while high level, had never really done any questing.  At level 84, they had about 700 quests completed.  Their reps, the ones you would have gotten from questing in the 0-60 zones and in Wrath, were nonexistent.  Yet, all the ones you can get or grind through dungeons?  Nice and high, mostly high honored or revered with a couple exalted-s.

We came across her (the toon was a female) in Uldum.  This toon is an scribe so I don't HAVE to go through Deepholm (again) and the husband didn't care much.  We decide that we'll go through the Ramkahen quest chain first and THEN do the Harrison Jones stuff.  We come across her, the first time, while trying to do the bugged out Pit of Scales quest.  A little while later, the husband gets a whisper from her asking for help.

He talks back and forth with her for a while and then she asks if she can join us.  I tell husband that I don't care and go afk to deal with housework.  When I come back, she's joined the group.  Now, she's leveling as a disc priest.  Which isn't impossible these days.  However, she honestly can't figure out how to do half the quests.  So, we would have her link the quest to us, and then we'd take her there and point at whatever needs to be done or kill whatever needed to die.

This was about the time we realized she didn't know how to quest.  At all.  She had leveled via the RDF and while knowing a lot about healing in dungeons, had no idea that you had to 1. read the quest text and 2. complete the quest as the text tells you.  We ended up catching her up in the quest chain and then walking her through the rest of the Ramkahen quest line.  Then we started the Harrison Jones stuff, where she had 'finished' it (she said).  She came along with us and couldn't figure out what we were doing.  Turns out she never picked up the goggles you get from the corpse on the ground.  So, we walked her through those too.

By the end, husband and I were both 84 and we had (all 3) finished Uldum.  It was really adorable.  She was a complete noob and it was refreshing to see the zone through her eyes.  At the end of the night, we had a new (nooby) friend and I promised her that we would look her up to go through Twilight Highlands.  I haven't told the husband THAT part of it yet.

However, I told my main's name (since I was on my death knight) and the husband told her his main as well (he was on his mage).  It was fun to quest with someone who did NOT know what to do.  It was like questing with my husband at the beginning of his WoW relationship.  "Yes husband, pick that up. NO DON'T DO THAT."  It turns out this will be her first 85 (kinda figured that) and she is nervous about JP and VP.  I just want to pinch her little cheeks!!

Have you ever come across a total noob?  Did you help them?  Make fun of them?  Were you that total noob?

And the Music will move you.

This post was triggered by a discussion on Twitter between Cynwise and a TON of other people.  He made a comment about what he should have his child do, piano or cello, and there was a lot of discussion about this.  So, I want to talk about music for a little bit.

I have always loved music.  One of my earliest memories is of my mom playing a song and then asking me "Did you hear that?" and rewinding the tape so I could hear the line she was talking about.  By doing this, she taught me to pick out the individual lines in the music.  I could hear the french horn, the trumpet, the saxophone.

When I got to be old enough (7th grade), there was no doubt that I would join the school band.  The band was made up of about 10 kids and everyone played a different instrument.  (I went to a TINY school, I had 20 kids in my class that year.)  I picked up the baritone and lugged it around.  I didn't play it for very long, mostly because I wasn't a very strong child and lugging that mother f-er around was hard.  (My entire town was only a square mile but my babysitter was on one side and my house was on the other AND the school was like dead in the middle.)  I ended up picking up the flute.  Mostly because it was light and I could put it in my backpack.

When I moved to live with my mom (my parents were divorced), I joined the school band.  This was a whole school band, not just middle school (I was in 8th grade here and had 13 kids in my class). So there was about 25 kids.  However, there was no low brass, so I picked up that goddamn baritone again and pretty much played the tuba part for the band.  Ompha Ompah!

When we moved again (before 9th grade), we moved to a large town and I joined the band again.  I started out with flute and after getting hit in the back of the head REPEATEDLY by the girl that sat next to me (she looked like a willow tree in a wind storm), I asked my teacher if there was another instrument I could play.  He said he needed french horn players.  So I switched.  And honestly, I've never looked back.  French horn is awesome and fun and beautiful.  I marched with my french horn for 3 seasons of high school marching band and 2 seasons of 'extracurricular marching band'.  I also ended up picking up trumpet for our high school's jazz band.  It was awesome.  I excelled at brass instruments and I loved it.

After high school, my music went by the wayside.  A couple years ago, I joined a pops orchestra but I didn't stick with because I ended up having severe anxiety attacks before performances.  I also tried to learn how to play the viola but stopped because the idea of strings boggles my mind.  (My husband played stand up bass in high school and plays electric bass, guitar and ukulele now, so he has no sympathy for me!)

What does this have to do with anything?  I can hear you asking this.  Well, it's like this.  I would love LOVE to see Blizzard introduce a Bard class into the game.  There are so many cool things you can do.  The idea of walking around playing a lyre, dulcimer, guitar, ukulele, or whatever appeals to me so so so much.

I played a MUD for years (from 1999 until we bought our house in 2004) and in that MUD, there was a bard class.  This class was able to do a lot of things, they could make you dance and thus make you too tired to fight them.  (The dancing song was Lionel Ritchie's "Dancing on the Ceiling".)  I can't remember all the other things you could but in the MUD they were noted for being awesome fencers.  I think they had a song that could let them put people to sleep and there were songs that buffed their party members.  It was awesome.

I don't know how you'd have to balance this with Blizz's new policy of making everyone share buffs but it would be so awesome.  Maybe they could bring a fort buff since I believe it's only warriors (short duration and they can't do anything else, shout wise), imps and priests who bring that buff.  

I don't know.  It's just a thought I had.  And that I had to get out.  Btw, in that MUD?  I played a rogue, a warrior and a mage.  I had a couple healers but I never really played them.  I preferred murdering things.  (I was an evil person, except for my mage.  She was too much like Mylune!)

Oh yeah, I also own a piano (inherited it from my Grandmother) but I can't do much more then play chopsticks on it.  I can't see to use my left hand to play it!

The pain, it burns.

It's Thursday night, after raid.  This is my 3rd or 4th raid sitting here in my chair, not being in vent but listening to my husband talk to the others and watching raid chat, trying to piece together the conversations.  This headache is slowly killing me.  I have an appointment with a neurologist this coming Monday.  I'm afraid of what they might find but mostly afraid of what they don't find.

Last night, we did wonderful, pretty much one shot-ing the Siege of Wyrmrest Temple and then moving on to Ultraxion.  Ultraxion took us 6 tries but we finally got him/her down.  I managed to get my first dropped piece of loot too!  Yay!  I love upgrades.  However, the end part of Ultraxion, when Nozdormu throws out his ability and the time-y wime-y sound hits?  Yeah, my head turns off and I lose it.  I spent the 5 seconds that you're supposed to use to press Inner Will (before Hour of Twilight) trying to press my "Your Innervate is ready' key.  Wiped our raid with 200K left on the boss.  Sorry guys.  :(

As a result of my darling headache, my WoW time has drastically cut itself down.  PvP makes me frustrated and that makes the headache worse.  Raiding is very unsatisfying at the moment because the pain makes it feel like a slog.  It doesn't help that I'm a druid and share tier pieces with 3 other classes, of which we have at least 1 of each, plus extras sometimes.  This is me whining at you Blizzard!

I'm not willing to give up my gaming.  As a result of this, I have become very cranky and short almost everywhere else.  But small things make me happy.  Here is my guild gathering to start raid from yesterday.  And the druid is me, with my adoptive kitten that I just got from the Darkmoon  Faire.

And then, when I logged on today, I went to visit my Warchief.

He threatened to send a crew from the Warsong Lumber Camp to 'deal' with me but I will brave that!

And lastly, my guild spent the evening dealing with Warmaster Blackhorn.  And I proceeded to make poems, except they don't rhyme.

I was then told not to say things like "I am the light and the dark" because that sounds wacky!  I should have said that it sounds wacky because I am wacky.  But then my husband told me to stop laying on the ship's deck and actually heal.  I wasn't going to get to tank the floor.  Spoilsport.

I'll leave with my screenshot from today's raid gathering.  My guild boarding the ship.

2012 - The year that everything changes?

I'm having a hard day.  I've spent it alone, out of the house, doing grocery shopping and other RL weekly quests that I usually have a group for.  I did meet up with the husband for lunch but he left his gold pouch at home so I bought for us.

However, I want to share a few things that make me smile.

First of all @GarroshHllscrm is probably the funniest twitter person I have ever read.  His posts over at The Warchief's Command Board make me smile and honestly cheer me up no matter how bad a day I am having.  I didn't like Garrosh until I started reading his blog.  And now, I think I like him more then Thrall.  (Sorry my best friend!!!)  Go read, even if you are Alliance and he's kill on sight.

Secondly, I ordered myself a Christmas present late last week. This will be arriving in about 2-3 weeks.  But honestly, this is the only piece of jewelry I wear and I'm completely jazzed about it.  (For those of you who are linkphobic, here's a picture!)

It only came to about $23 total, with shipping which is awesome for something I will probably wear everyday.  (Since I lost my wedding ring 4 or 5 years ago.)

So, happy New Year blog readers!  I hope your year is off to a better start then mine.  I've been home a total of 3 hours all day and am about to leave again.  I really only came home to start dinner so I would have something yummy to eat when I got home.  (Gluten-free beef stew is on the stove now.  Wasn't going to be gluten-free but the doctor said that I'm off wheat for at a minimum of 2 weeks.  Yay.  2nd day of the year and I'm starting a major life style change!  Woot?)

Also, since Ghostcrawler did promise us all a pony, I will share with you the pony the husband got me for New Years.