That's ... not right.

Ummm..... O.o

If you can't make out the pic, feel free to click to enlarge it. It's, uh, um, yeah.

My thoughts on the Netherwing Rep Grind

Yes, that's what I've been doing the last week or so. Grinding rep for my netherwing drake. And I've come to some conclusions:

• Yvelle makes an ugly fel orc.
• Fel orcs make ugly fel orcs.
• Easiest rep grind with a mount reward at the end (that I've done). There are several dailies, and you can turn in an unlimited number of eggs each day.
• Your netherdrake is free when you reach exalted? Um, I knew that...
• The booterang quest is quite possibly the funnest quest in the entire game. Just cuz.
• Even at levels 74, 75 and 76, the quests still reward decent experience. Yes, I leveled twice doing only minimal Northrend quests and one Utegard Keep run.
• Hello, gold. Each of the dailies varied in gold rewards, most being 4g 40s, but some as high as 8g 80s. I raked in the cash.
• If those eggs were real, the entire netherwing drake race would be extinct. I mean, c'mon. They'd be worse than kidney stones to pass. Us women thought we had it bad? No sane drake female would knowingly agree to have those monstrosities. *shudder*
• Looking for eggs is very, very addicting. Cuz you never know. There just might be one right around the corner. No? Maybe the next corner. Or the next. Or the next. It's like gambling. Your next score could happen any second. Do you dare stop?
• Everyone (and their grandma) knows the flayer side of mine is the place to hunt for eggs. So when everyone (and their grandma) is on the flayer side, go to the blob side. There's usually one or two there that they're missing, because those guys are too busy with the flayers. Score!
• The game knows when you're one egg -- just one egg -- away from exalted. And it will gleefully string you along for almost an hour as you hit every single spawn point you know of. Stupid game. >.>

About a week and two levels later, please welcome Jorus, my Cobalt Nether Drake. Is it sad that I remember the name of the drake I "bonded" with? Nahhh...

(O/T- Blogger makes me /cry. My images are either too huge to fit in the little column they give me, or they're so tiny there's almost no detail. And I can't seem to put images anywhere but the very top of the post. My HTML is so rusty I'm wary of trying to code it in where I want it myself. End result? You get an itty bitty pic at the top of the page. Eh. At least you can click on it and get a full size pic.)

Watch this, seriously

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said I was trying to cut down on the Off-Topic (i.e. Off-Lock) posts, but at least this is WoW related. This is a direct link for the animation below, since Blogger made it so tiny. I highly recommend it. It's almost 8 minutes long, but great. When the music really kicks in (with a trumpet fanfare), it can kinda throw you off. It's well choreographed to the beat, though. I think it worked well, even though it wasn't my type of music.


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.

Happy New Year!

As of 55 minutes ago, here in the Mountain Time Zone, 2009 has arrived!!!

Some New Years resolutions:

• Get Yvelle to 80th. Um, shouldn't be an issue. She's already halfway to 75.
• Get a second, non-Death Knight character to 80th. Much more difficult. Most likely it will be Winterhawk, who is now a level 50 hunter. Don't believe the sigs at the bottom. They're supposed to update automatically. They're not...
• Write more Warlock specific posts. Cuz this is a Lock blog. And it should stop having general/holiday/off-topic posts (like this one >.>)
• Start raiding and doing heroics. Any raids. Any heroics. I never got into either in Burning Cursade, because I was continually working on my Hit Rating, and Spell Damage, and getting the perfect gear/enchant/whatever. And as we got closer to Wrath's release, the urge to get the best dwindled. What was the point, when I'd be replacing it soon enough? Here I am again though, and this time I will get involved with raids/heroics. Hopefully with my guild Wolfsong, but in a pug if I must.
• Get regular scheduled fun events for my guild. Wolfsong is fairly casual, and it'd be great to hold a get together event. We currently are planning a level one raid on Hogger. :P
• Catch up on reading other blogs! I keep falling behind but most of my information comes from my fellow bloggers.

Here's to another great World of Warcraft filled year!!!

Cue the spaghetti western music...

Remember the old John Wayne or Clint Eastwood western movies? At some point, our hero inevitably ended up in a ghost town, most likely for the final shoot out with a grim faced bad guy. Why do I mention this? Have you been to Shattrah recently?

*Crickets chirping...*

Yeah, same here. Except for the legions of leveling death knights (who are usually out and about in the rest of Outlands itself) and a smattering of 60 to almost 70 levels of other classes, Shattrah has been abandoned. Yvelle was in Shatt the other day, and flying around I found perhaps five or six other toons. The once proud and mighty Shatt has fallen. Kinda depressing, really.

In fact, all of Outlands has puttered out, until its just a springboard for those 10 levels until you can hit Northrend.

Big Bear Butt recently touched on this (and several other issues) in a recent post. Burning Crusade brought a huge amount of, at the time, end game content and rewards for the level 70's to strive for. Not just gear, but reputation rewards and massive amounts of gold from dailies to afford the niceties, like their epic flying mount. I have seen several mid-range level 70's with regular flying mounts. How many of the newly leveled characters are going to be able to afford their epic flyers at 70 anymore? And what about the BC reputation mounts - the Talbuks, the Nether Rays, the Nether Drakes, and the Cenarion War Hippogriffs mounts? With everyone rushing off to Northrend as soon as can be, I don't see many people bothering to take the time need for those.

Now, to be fair, Wrath has a whole new set of reputation rewards, including mounts, to aim for. Personally, I plan on getting my own dragon. :) I'm also aiming for the achievement award for the Albino Drake. That's going to be pricey - it already has been pricey, and I only have 35 or so mounts. I still plan on finishing the slow grind to get my Nether Drake, just like I did with my Ray. I like having the sense of achievement, even if the grind isn't as difficult as it used to be. When my other characters get to level 70, I plan on them at least trying to grind out rep for either a Ray or a Drake, maybe while they're questing in Northrend.

Like Shatt, many people will pass up the old rewards for the new shiner ones. Only the very dedicated will bother with the old level 70 rep grinding. But I still have my Ray to show off, and I have my own sense of accomplishment. I guess that's what matters now.

EDIT - I just realized the need for an epic flyer really isn't there until players hit level 77, since that's when the cold weather flying ability opens up. Not many 70's stay around Outlands much to lament their slow fliers. That's another seven levels to earn roughly 7000g (5000g training, 900g epic mount, and 1000g for the cold weather training). Still, ouch on the pocket book if you're not doing dailies and/or playing the Auction House game.

Happy Holidays!

A little late, but whatever brand you celebrate, if you celebrate, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Are you kidding me?

Um, yeah. That's what I thought when I first saw this. An outhouse? O.o Little did I know where this was going ... (Click on the pics to get the full thing. They're too big.)

Yeah, that's me in there. >.> Thoothun just can't be happy standing in the blast radius. I just don't know what else to say at this point.