Random Thoughts

On 3.1:

In all, other than the time it took them to patch the servers (which didn't matter to me since I wasn't available to play until 9 server), I was impressed with the patch. Most of my addons worked, only a few gave errors, and when I clicked through the errors, they all worked as intended. I started in Dalaran, did the daily cooking quest, and picked up the new daily fishing quest. It took me to Sholazar which was nice since I got my Frenzyheart dailies done at the same time. I then returned to Dalaran, turned in the quest, and then flew up to Icecrown for the Argent Tourney.

On the Argent Tournament:

Pretty darn cool. I easily breezed through the intro quests, picked up the other dailies, and quickly earned 5 tokens. The quest to obtain 15 tokens will be done on Thursday, so it should be nice to see what opens up after that. Dueling on horseback is pretty sweet and the dailies take you all over Northrend. The only issue we had was after starting the Black Knight quest line and going to Westfall, when we tried to hearth back to Dalaran, the Northrend server was down and I had to call it a night.

On WoWMatrix:

Yesterday, news was released that WowMatrix had been blocked by both Curse and WowInterface. I completely understand the reasoning behind blocking WowMatrix, and, ultimately, it was the right decision to make for both sites, however, the way they handled it was completely wrong. They waited until patch day to block WowMatrix. They had been planning for weeks (if not months) on blocking the application, yet they didn't alert anyone to that fact. They gave no one a chance to prepare for the application breaking. The kept all the end-users in the dark and waited until the worst possible moment for everyone to break a vital application.

Like I said, I understand why they did it. Simple economics. WowMatrix made it so you didn't have to visit Curse or WowInterface to get your addons and they lose income because of that. There is no other reason other than simple $$$. However, again, like I said, the way they broke WowMatrix was despicable. They chose to break the application without providing any viable alternative. The Curse downloader obviously only works on Curse and is quite gimped and installs addons you didn't choose to install. As for WowInterface's updater, well...they don't have one. They'll gladly shut you out of their network, yet provide no alternative. Kudos to you guys.

So they shut down WowMatrix, which was a simple, efficient way to download addons without providing an alternative and they do so on the busiest day of the year. And what happens? Both sites crash or slow to a crawl. Gee, who would have seen that coming? Both Curse and WowInterface reported bandwidth drops of 30% and up, however, both were unable to stay up as people who used WowMatrix flooded their sites looking for updates, and, in most cases, not finding them due to poor search results, slow sites, and outdated addon listings.

On Achievements:

On Monday a few of our regular raiding team got together to do heroic achievements. Still working on that red drake and all...we decided to try the spider lairs, Azjol'Nerub and Ahn'kahet. After repeated wipes on Watch Him Die, we skipped it and proceeded to easily get Hadronox Denied and Gotta Go!. Not too bad. Over in Ahn'kahet, we easily got The Party's Over (Phosphorex had to sit that one out) and Volunteer Work. Respect Your Elders took us two tries, but only because we had a slight healing issue in the main room, but we got it done. Volazj's Quick Demise will have to wait as that is a very tough achievement. I think we'll have to all go in as DPS as I had troubles getting the healer down in the madness portion.

Of course, last night I earned Argent Aspiration and Dual Talent Specialization. I was a little disappointed to see no new achievements outside the Argent Tourney and Noblegarden. There are some smaller ones like for Dual Spec and for the new fishing dailies, but nothing fun like in the last patch. Oh wells, I think the Argent Tourney and upcoming holidays will keep me plenty busy.

On Paladins:

On Monday, I met a fellow blogger in the game after she saw my spam in trade chat. Please take a second and go say hi to Platezilla. She has some very cool updates to read and an awesome story about her death knight Velanora.

Thus ends my rants, tonight, more Argent Tourney fun, and maybe some tries at the Emerald Whelpling out in the Swamp of Sorrows. Oh, and perhaps some manual addon updating since WowMatrix doesn't work :(

Hello, my name is Tiddlywinks...

...and I'm an Achievement Junkie. Yes, that's right. I'm addicted to those little achievement points and I passed a nice milestone this weekend. It all started Saturday morning as I forced some guildmates to go to Drak'Tharon so I could finish up my Northrend Dungeon Hero achievement. And, it was done...


And while we were fighting the second boss (attempting an achievement), this nice little achievement popped up for me:


So that was a nice run. We continued on to the Halls of Stone so Phosphorex could get his Northrend Dungeon Hero (also obtained Northrend Dungeonmaster at the same time) and on the last boss we completed Abuse the Ooze, so we spammed guild chat with a LOT of achievements after that dungeon clear.

The next day, as I realized last week how close I was to 1,000 daily quests, I put in the time both Saturday and Sunday to do 20+ quests and I was able to achieve my 4,500th point with 1,000 daily quests.


So here I sit, with 4,500 achievement points. And tons to go. I started to work on some Arathi Basin achievements, but got frustrated and hardly made it through one game as the Horde were stomping us. It's just too hard to have fun in there unless you have a pre-made or get lucky and join a group who is semi-competent.

What a Weekend

Wow, quite an action packed weekend in the world of Azeroth. The scourge invasion has been taken to another level with the appearance of floating Necropoli and Phosphorex and I had a great time battling back the invaders and looking for our Undead Slaughtering gear (unfortunately no cloth drops of the 6 we've seen). The best part of the Scourge invasion is the return of the Argent Dawn Quartermasters. And with those quartermasters returns the Tabard of the Argent Dawn. This puts me at 16 tabards, quite a nice count on my way towards 25.

Also this weekend, Tenris Mirkblood popped up in Karazhan so the Gold Team quickly assembled to bring him down. What a surprise to find a cute little Vampiric Batling on him! I had no idea he would give me pet #78, but I'm not complaining. I love the little guy.

When Phosphorex and I had a lull in our scourge killing, we quickly hit up Heroic Ramparts and Blood Furnace. With the help of a couple Honor Hold Favors, I have reached exalted with my 23rd faction and I was able to pick up a new enchanting recipe and a new tabard. Now I just need some more Lower City and Keepers of Time rep to achieve The Burning Crusader and 25 Exalted Reputations in one fell swoop.

The weekend also took me to Kalimdor as I work on the Loremaster achievement. Some work was also put in on fishing in Ironforge for Old Ironjaw. This evening, back to Kalimdor after doing my dailies and fight back the scourge when they appear.

Raider Tiddlywinks?

Last night was pretty fun. After clearing the four bosses in Zul'Aman on Wednesday, it was a nice change of pace to head into Ahn'Qiraj with the guild to earn the achievement Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. I was also hoping to pick up my Band of Vaulted Secrets and Drape of Vaulted Secrets to go along with the Blade of Vaulted Secrets I already have in my bank with a wonderful glow from Potency on it.

After quickly blowing through AQ and getting Flamehelix his blacksmithing recipes, I took some time to do the Outlands dailies, earned a bit of gold, and then was summoned to finish Zul'Aman from the night before. We quickly annihilated Malacrass and Zul'Jin and I got the achievement, Zul'Aman. Two of the tougher raiding achievements down, quite a few more to go. I just have AQ40 and Ony to complete Classic Raider.

Tonight, I will get 1,000 Fish as I went to bed last night sitting at 999/1000. Still no Ironjaw for me though after well over 1,000 casts in Ironforge. Going to keep working on it though. I'm also at about 600g and plan on achieving My Sack is "Gigantique" once I have 1200g for the bag. I also hope to be able to complete Loremaster of the Eastern Kingdoms at some point this weekend after I run Uldaman and BRD (where I have about 10 quests through chains to complete). Then I'm not sure what I'll be doing - there's a couple low level dungeons to explore, and then some level 60 dungeons that Phosphorex and I want to conquer. Also, the drop rate on the Deathcharger's Reins have been increased, so Phos and I might be in Scholo quite a bit this weekend.

Darn You Squashling!

I got nine more attempts at the Headless Horseman yesterday (bringing my total to 24), and still no Squashling. Have seen the Hallowed Helm drop twice (I already had it from last year), so I keep going telling everyone I pass on EVERYTHING except the squashling. Then yesterday, right as I woke up, I see my friend Phosphorex complete the Sinister Calling achievement. DARN YOU!

So once I got my Horseman runs out of the way, it was back to achievements. I'm up over 2,400 points now and working towards the Loremaster achievements. Right now I stand at 668/700 on the Eastern Kingdoms with a few more areas to explore. I have some chains to finish up in Uldaman and other random quests I've been finding with the Low Level Quest tracking option. However, I fear I'm going to run out of quests to do just short of 700. I'm trying to think of lesser known quest locations, but haven't thought of any yet (though I did find a nice one in Loch Modan during my explorations).

After the Eastern Kingdoms, I'll head to Kalimdor and scrounge for quests there. I know there's still a lot I didn't do on Azuremyst and the Night Elf starting zone. I did quite a few while working my rep up to exalted with those factions, but never did all of them. I'm also doing about 20 dailies a day as I work to buy more and more mounts. I believe I'm at 43 or so with only expensive mounts to buy from here on out.

After those achievements, I'll probably get back to fishing towards 1,000 fish and keep trying to get Old Ironjaw - can't believe I haven't found him yet in over 700 casts. I was able to complete Outland Gourmet and have done all the cooking quests available to me until Northrend.

On a side note, I wish there were a way to look up leaders in achievement points on servers, or at least know where you stand with respects to others on the server. I keep on comparing achievements to those around me and see 600, 900, some up around 1500, even some near 2000, but I haven't really seen anyone near 2500 yet. Phosphorex said he saw someone over 2500, so I know I still have some work to do - and if I can quickly get some heroics out of the way, I'll blow by 2,500. But it's just annoying at the present time to not really know how well you're doing. I imagine I'm probably near the top on the server with all of my grinding pre-achievements. However, I still have quite a few achievements to work on that I'm certain others easily picked up if they were dedicated to rep and grinds like I was pre-patch. So now I'm working towards 3,000 achievement points and 300/750 total achievements. Up up and away!