Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Sick Day

So, I took today off because I'm sick. Makes sense.
In between bouts of resting, eating, and relaxing, I've found a little bit of time to play some WoW (no surprise there). Figured that right now I'd also babble semi-coherently, while I watch some Azumanga Daioh.

Anyways, on to WoW:
Today I spent a little bit of time playing as my Blood Elf rogue, Lilindra. Dinged 19 and pretty much just have Deatholme quests left in the Ghostlands. Which also means I need to set a new goal for her (I came up with an unwritten goal last week of getting all my characters to 20 and out of their starting zones). Along those same lines, I need a new goal for my horde Hunter, who is also finishing up the same stuff.

Earlier, before my wife went to work, we hit level 14 with our ferals, and headed out to the moonglade for whaever quest they have for us there.

Yeah... nothing that I can declare as totally exciting to hear about - hopefully I'll be able to find a group and have time to run Hellfire Citadel with Laheth. That would be awesome.

Now! Go and comment on my wife's posts! She's awesome!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Goldfire's Pets

I am gonna say first off... Petopia has been a wonderful resource for me. Most of my other hunter hints have come from Gauntlet. Yes, I know he gets most of it from the Big Red Kitty blog and other such sites. We adapt the helpful hints into what works best for our personal needs.

So, I'm not really an experienced Hunter but I know what I like... even if my reasons are weak. I am not so much a number cruncher as a trial and error player. I pick my talents off what I wish to play with and what I use the most. I prefer arms warriors, DPS shamans, combat rogues, pet hunters, demon warlocks, holy pallys, holy priests, resto druids (balance for leveling), and arcane mages. And yes... I have tried just about every other talent tree as well. These are just what I like and prefer. Keep in mind I am a very social creature and often play in groups.

I have tried a few different pet types and I honestly enjoy playing with my dragonhawk. They are exotic and elegant. I love the flying pet types in general... including the non-combat pet types. Tails seems to have a faster focus recharge and the flame breath is beyond awesome. It is an AoE attack (and I always have a soft spot for AoEs) that stays at rank one till lvl 55-ish. That means I have more points to spend on natural armor and stamina than the standard pet attack. I have yet to encounter anything within five levels of myself that my dragonhawk can not kill. Also, I have not yet dealt with anything that has fire immunities. That might help.

Pigs are nice because they eat just about everything you can find and the charge attack is very stunning. Laheth switched to a boar after I tried mine and he seems to like it.
Laheth had a kitty for the first 55 levels, so I wanted to give it a try. I recently caught King B in STV and have been using him for the last couple of days so I can compare the most popular DPS pet to my dragonhawk.
The kitty (I named him Backup) hasn't earned enough training points to get all the ranks available in stamina, armor, avoidance, reflexes, growl, scratch, bite, and dash... he is higher level than Tails and they are both best friends. Tails can afford all of the above with a few points left over (swapping dive for dash and fire breath for scratch). We were going to play with the pet number cruncher on Petopia later to figure it out. My best guess is that Tails can afford it cuz of the fire breath rank one scales damage with levels without having to buy more ranks.

I have caught other pets in the past to learn skills but nothing has stuck with me as my dragonhawk has. I am big into style and being different. I enjoy having rare things. Few people have dragonhawks and people ask me about it all the time. I figure mostly cuz of the requirement to have picked it up outside of Silvermoon and trained it up from level 9. I knew when I made my hunter that I wanted a dragonhawk so I had no issues with leveling it!

Wow... get me talking and I ramble for a while...
Sorry about the length! ^_^

Monday, July 23, 2007

Goldfire's introduction

Greetings everyone! This is my first time posting a comment... ever!
A small introduction might be in order... so here I am (the wife). I might have been mentioned a few times previously. Mostly I play a lot of WoW. I have so many alts.... it's kinda scary. I can't even fit them all on one account! Being a housewife has so many perks. We do other things as well but World of Warcraft is the easiest to talk about. I also read and we're fairly social creatures.

This last weekend we celebrated Gauntlet's birthday by playing at royalty and solved a few problems on an island (Princes' Kingdom). I rather enjoyed it although our game will need a few bugs to be worked out. Mostly its a new game to us and new characters that needed a chance to let the personality come out. There were defiantly issues but I still had fun!

Vandren hit level 20 last night and my hunter, Sonnik and her pet dragonhawk Tails, hit level 43 while hunting whelplings! They are several levels above me but seem to do little damage... after playing so many other classes I am constantly surprised at how durable hunters can be. Sonnik and tails have been quite the entertainment. I know that caster pets are not suggested but I just can't help myself! I love the cone attack fire breath (a directional AoE) and the dragonhawks look so very elegant and colorful! Yes... I may be one of those girls who favor fashion and sets that look neat... but at least I go for functionality, too!
Speaking of neat stuffs... I am getting kinda antsy. Gotta go check my auctions!

Friday, July 20, 2007

What's up in WoW?

So, this week hasn't seen much WoW playing going on for me... Stray and Kritter (my wife's feral) hit 12 one night... I pushed Vandren (and his boar Sucha) up to 18 because he was close and I had a few minutes one morning. Otherwise not much.

My adorable wife got her Blood Elf Hunter (also Beast Mastery ^_^) from 36 to 42, grabbed a purple Chocobo (they call 'em Cockatrices, but they're not fooling me) and some mail armor, and is happily running around being surprised at her effectiveness.
She also is now running with a pet attack/hunter's mark macro and a pull macro, which will hopefully serve her pretty well.

And now, I think it's nearing the end of this build, so it's time to turn to my other monitor and get some stuff done.

Near Alpha

So very tired. Second week of crunch, with our alpha milestone on monday. Efficiency/productivity is way down on my end, which is bad, since I've got a couple medium tasks to finish today.

Wish me luck.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Last Week in WoW

Laheth and Tusk ran around Zangarmarsh and beat up the indigenous and non-indigenous inhabitants for pretty much anybody that asked. Quite mercenary, but hey! They're clearly labelled as villains, be it through quest text or action. No level yet, but I got to play with my lovely wife, which is far better than any advancement.

Yesterday Chimmery ran through Gnomeregan with his brother Tremmery (another of my wife's characters) and a PUG. The last guy dropped a very nice ring, which we both rolled too low for, but it didn't matter, since we unknowingly had a ninja, who took it and then claimed to be a noob and not know what he was doing. According to our healer who was in his guild, he's done it every instance he's run before, so we're calling bullshit on that one.

Ashcraft has enslaved another helpful demon after doing all she could for them Bloodmyst folk. Her new succubus has a pretty neat name which escapes me right now. Oh, and I respecced her for pure demonology, to see if I prefer it over the affliction-ness. Side-note: She needs a new dress.

Stray and her near-twin (played by my wife - see a trend?) hit 10 and pranced off to see a bear about a bear form. We've already diverged in our Feral choices, because she digs DPS, and I dig tanking. I should probably check out some builds and theorycrafting for them.

...and I think that's all I've done this last week. I'll probably accomplish even less this week.

This Blog Is My Blog, This Blog Ain't Your Blog...

Yeah, I said that I was going to probably talk about stuff other than WoW on this blog, and I haven't done it much. Know what? Too bad. I don't want to talk about my personal life (I had a LiveJournal account before (still do, but I don't update it)), and work is tightly under Non-Disclosure Agreements... pretty much all I can about that is where I work and what platforms we develop for (Foundation 9 Studios / Amaze Entertainment / Griptonite; Primarily Nintendo DS currently).

I guess I can give a tidbit of information regarding non WoW stuff though. I've been reading over The Princes Kingdom, and I plan on running a trial to learn the rules and then hopefully an actual game this weekend. We have a group of folks (all friends) who we play roleplaying games together with, but at some point it became a sole member's role to be the Game Master. Which is a shame. He's a great guy, and a great GM (he was my Best Man, and his speech at our wedding was about pen and paper games), but he's been wanting to play in something for a while. A few of our other friends ran games, but they've all had issues (Ah, Fallout. What an appropriate name for our group dynamic, as well as a witty pun about how to gain pertinent information: Drop out of the campaign for a bit).

So I'm taking it on myself to try running something. I'm fairly quick on my feet, I can be engaging enough in conversation, and I wouldn't mind being the leader sometimes. My only real fear is that it won't be fun, and it will be my fault. Which could be construed as being silly, but it's a big deal. Everybody will be there to have fun and hang out, and they are all really good friends who I hate to disappoint.

I had a talk with my friend about it (The Best Man, for lack of a better name that wouldn't link his online presence or mine to this blog), and I'm better mentally prepared for it... but now I'm in the middle of an alpha crunch, and am not sure if we can pull off the trial run before the main event. Maybe I'll try it the morning before the game, if I'm still working late by Thursday (Friday is always taken).

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

At Work

Don't you hate it when the linker has an issue, and you have to recompile all the code in your project?

Doesn't it take a long time?

No? Well it does for me.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Weekend Happenings In Azeroth (July 7/8)

In addition to what I said last post, Ashcraft also managed to (with the help of a delightful arachnophobic Draenei) down Razormaw and finish off a couple of other quests, pushing all the way up to level 20. Now her little demonically-powered self gets to sit in an inn until she's full up on rest experience, or gets antsy.

And then we played the Paladin Triplets and got Starrlia and Starrlya up to 44, by running through Razorfen Downs a couple of times (drop your helmet again, you stupid lich!).

Otherwise not much happened. Really. At least, in Azeroth. There's always Earth, you know. We play there sometimes too.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

WoW Character Goals: First Followup

Laheth and Tusk have both gone through their respective respecs, after Laheth dinged 64 by finishing up the last quests that will get me to the same story points as my wife.

Ashcraft ground some quests away, and finished off the little bit she had in 16, and then blew right through to level 18.


Time for a break. Food and other things beckon.

WoW Character Goals

Snapshot of what I want to accomplish with each of my WoW characters currently:

Laheth and Tusk: (Hunter) I need to spend the gold and do a quick respec of Laheth - he's using a slightly outdated version of the BRK Beast Mastery and Kicking Ass talent build, and being able to drop the full 5 points in Improved Hunter's Mark would make my wife and Tusk happy on the DPS side of things. I'm also tempted to respec Tusk, and see if I can't squeeze some more health at the expense of armor, since he's already a boar.

Starrlia: (Paladin) Due to the dangers of going and mining, and the hand-in-hand destruction of those dangers, Starrlea has managed to sneak ahead to level 44, whilst 'Ia and 'Ya languish in the depths of 43. Whenever we (my wife plays Starrlya) stop enjoying the Outlands (ha!) or our other character pairings, we'll get right on that.

Chimmery: (Mage) My most social character has been in the low 30s for months. I'd love to get him up to 40 so he can run around on a little mechanostrider and make motor noises, but it's really not a very high priority. Being squishy (albeit very blasty) doesn't inspire me to level him.

Saryss: (Rogue) She's doing well in the low 20s, for when other people around that level want to play.

Ashcraft: (Warlock) I'll actually be playing her later today, once I've finished up a couple things that I'm allowed to do right now with Laheth. Her goal is to get through all the Bloodmyst Isle quests and hopefully hit around 20, and then I'll fly her around the world to get her next summon.

Djellin: (Warrior) Another coupled character. We're aiming for Arathi Highlands and Hillsbrad with them.

Stray: (Druid) My newest character. Lowest level. Paired with another of my wife's creations. Only goal is to play as a feral druid, so I guess we aim for level 10 for now.

All Those Horde Characters: (Paladin, Rogue, Hunter) Plain old levelling... and since there is only a poorly-defined goal, coupled with friends playing Alliance and my strongest pull characters also being Alliance, I think they're going to languish in their beautiful magical city of awe and wonder, craving their magical fix.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Knights of Justice (and Others)

Regardless of the fact that nobody knows about this blog yet, I'm going to go ahead and introduce some of the characters that I play in World of Warcraft... largely because I like making lists, dammit.

Server: Scarlet Crusade
Alignment: Alliance
  • Laheth and Tusk
    • Level 63 Night Elf Beast Mastery Hunter, and my primary character.
    • Saved from a life of mediocrity by Big Red Kitty's blog... until I swapped from Marksman to Beast Mastery, my soloing was not very fun, and since that's what I mostly did, he sat on the shelf level-wise for a long while.
  • Starrlia
    • Early 40s Human Protection Paladin. Specifically created for grouping with two other characters (Starrlya and Starrlea)
  • Chimmery
    • Early 30s Gnome Mage. Currently Arcane specialized, although that could change at any time.
    • Far and away my most social character, but also a character who I don't level much... I think he broke 30 before the Burning Crusade hit, to give you an idea.
  • Saryss
    • Early 20s Night Elf Rogue. Combat specialized, and an absolute blast to play on rare occasion... I usually like grouping with somebody else so I can backstab over and over and over again. There's something strangely satisfying about that.
  • Ashcraft
    • Late teens Gnome Warlock. She's affliction right now, but I'm going to do some research and see if I wouldn't like Demonology more (especially given how much fun I'm having as a Beast Mastery hunter).
  • Djellin
    • Late 20s Draenei Warrior. Protection spec'd, and intrinsically tied to a couple other characters when it comes time to playing. We (my wife and I) do that a fair amount.
  • Stray
    • I think she's level 3? My wife and I made near-identical Night Elf Druids that we plan on running together as ferals. Should be a blast, as well as a breeze (she played another druid up to 64, switching between resto and balance).

Alignment: Horde
  • Strael
    • Early 30s Blood Elf Paladin. Currently running a hybrid holy/protection spec, but am tempted to make him a retnoob to level. Technically my primary horde character, but I haven't played him in quite a whiles.
  • Vandren and Sucha
    • Late teens Blood Elf Hunter. Beast Mastery. Another boar-partner (this one's black!)
  • Lilindra
    • Blood Elf Rogue... fairly similar to Saryss, except she's horde ^_^

Yeah... that's all of them. I'm an altaholic... and I like elves.
In my defense, my first character ever was on another server, and he was an undead rogue... and I think I've had and deleted one of every race at some point.

Weekend Happenings In Azeroth

Laheth (my main; Night Elf - Beast Mastery Hunter) hit 63 and got leatherworking up to 325... only a few more points to make that nice [Wild Draenish Vest] for my wife (I'm trying to catch up to her 64 Resto Druid).

Also, ran my wife and our friend through Stockades with Laheth... that was fairly hilarious, given how much of a pain that instance was back at the appropriate level as my mage.

Finished up all the Darkshire quests with Draenei Warrior alt, running with the aforementioned (wife and friend both playing Draenei Shamans).