Zul'Aman...We're Back!

Trolls, you're on notice. Tonight, after a very long absence, the Gold Team 10 Man group will be heading back to Zul'Aman. We're going to aim for 3 timed bosses and try and progress as we have not yet cleared the instance. Time to die trolls, time to die.

Back...

((Well, I'm back from Comic-Con. Got a chance to sit in on the World of Warcraft panel and hear all about the comic books, the manga, the card game, the figurines, everything except...the game. But that's what I expected. It was a talk about the merchandise. Only when they opened it up for Q&A did the game get discussed, and even then, questions like..."Why no legendary for hybrid druids" came up and just frustrated all those involved.

Alas, no pet was handed out and the "special gift" mentioned in the description of the panel was a lame WoW trading card game pin. We did get a very nice exclusive Comic-Con issue of the comic book which we got signed by the artist, so that's a nice bonus. But the panel was pretty...blah. Except of course meeting up with Vetarra and Narina from my guild. Always nice to meet guildies outside of the game and especially ones who are as nice as they were.))

So after my vacation, I was amped to get out and start killing things again, especially with my new Ethereal Soul-Trader following me around collecting Soul Credits. I made room for my Firefly in the bank and now just carry my Soul-Trader and my Rocket Chicken.

Oh yeah, I'm currently carrying Don Carlos' Famous Hat with me as the aforementioned wonderful Vetarra, Aracely, and Khyras helped me obtain it yesterday. Don Carlos is a pushover really and we killed him a few times in heroic with just 4 people (probably could be done with 3 or even 2 if you could get enough DPS) and we all got our hats. I also obtained my pattern for Dress Shoes as it was sold out the first time I tried to buy it. Together with the Haliscan items, I could make a nice little outfit. Though I'll probably go for the Soul-Trader outfit first.

With the addition of my Soul-Trader and Ghost Wolf, I sit at 71 of 83 pets collected. An impressive feat and I cannot wait until I can free up 71 bag spaces with the expansion.

Big Changes!

As you know, I'm a pet collector. With my two recent additions (Firefly and Ethereal Soul-Trader), I'm at 70 pets! With nothing but Imbued Netherweave Bags in my bank, that's almost 4 bags filled with pets! But, announced today, pets will no longer take bag slots (neither will mounts in that case).

Pets will now be learned as "spells" which you can then summon rather than having to carry around the item with you. While I'm pretty pleased with this change, I will miss carrying around my firefly cage or my worg carrier. But, summoning them will be much easier (truly random pets every time!) and I'll also get to have random mounts as well.

I shall be absent this weekend, but I have been tooling around in Azeroth more and more over the past week. Yesterday was the crocolisk fishing quest, but I was not rewarded with another pet. We shall keep up the good work.

An Update

((While I'm assuming readership of this blog, I figured I'd update it quickly. The move went off pretty well and I'm almost settled in. I'm figuring that once I finally get my computer set up in my room rather than it being in the spare room, I'll be playing more, but as it stands, I really haven't much time to play - it's been split between general household chores and fixing the house up.

In game, our Gold Team 25 man raids have been canceled permanently I believe as we had too many people saying they'd show up and then never make it. We also had a hacking issue which held us up and I'm not sure the group will get back together. From what I've heard we're going to go back to 10 mans and hopefully I'll be kept apprised of that move as I would love to be in a competent 10 man group once Wrath comes out.

From what I've been hearing, the good news is that when Wrath comes out, mages will return to their former glory days as the glass cannons, putting out the highest amount of damage on multiple targets (rogues supposedly can do the most damage to any single target foe).

On the pet front, I did not achieve my goal of getting the pet from Ahune. I was just too busy to have time to kill Ahune five times a day (I barely made it on more than a couple times over the past few weeks). New testing is now going on for the Hallow's Eve event and hopefully this year I can pick up my Siniter Squashling. Also, the pet from the World Wide Invitational in France is simply amazing - a pet Tyreal! Unfortunately, it's going for a bit too much on eBay. But now is my only chance if I want one. Murky and Gurky have passed me by...but how can I justify the cost??

Stay tuned, I'm hoping to get back into the game prior to Wrath, but it's just tough to find any reason to play. My gear cannot be upgraded outside of 25-mans, there are few recipes available to purchase on auction and only a couple pets I could grind and no faction rep to grind. Hopefully something will come along before Wrath to keep me interested. I've got thousands of gold and other than checking the daily fishing quest, there's just not much to do.))

Fire Festival!

Today the Midsummer Fire Festival began in Azeroth. There were some new quests to do involving torch tossing and brazier lighting. After doing those, I set out to gather Burning Blossoms. After trekking through the Outlands, Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, I managed to visit each and EVERY flame. That includes the flames in Undercity, Thunder Bluff, Orgrimmar, and Silvermoon. Total possible tickets for an Alliance member after day 1? 617 blossoms.

Immediately went and spent 350 of those blossoms on my latest pet, the Spirit of Summer! (I now sit at 67 pets, #34 on the top 50 single player collections). I attempted to get the new pet that Ahune, the Frost Lord drops, but we only attempted him on regular, not heroic, so I had no shot at the latest pet. He also refused to drop the new enchant I want.

On a side note, while finding flames in Desolace, I hooked up with the Super-Seller 680 to buy the Lean Wolf Flank Recipe. I also stopped in RFD while I was in horde territory and learned the recipe for Goldthorn Tea. That now lands me at 113/115 cooking recipes (98%). Just one more that is easily attainable, then the only epic cooking recipe available...

A Reversal

I previously stated that I couldn't find much to do in-game, that all has changed since I just realized the Midsummer Fire Festival returns tomorrow. With the festival, I have two pets I need to try and obtain. However, it appears that the Spirit of Summer quest line is no longer available. But I have heard rumors that he can still be purchased for 350 Burning Blossoms. So I've got some work to do. There's also a new pet this year - a Scorchling. It's probably a rare drop, but five people in your party can carry the quest into the instance, so hopefully it's a one in five drop rate - but if not, I'll be there farming this thing as much as possible!

So starting tomorrow I have some work to do. Should be fun to see how many blossoms I can collect. According to Wowhead, I may be able to get 350 in one year, otherwise I will try and get as many as possible and bank them until next year.

Play Time

Wow, it's been almost three weeks since a post. I have spent the majority of my time at the new house getting it ready for move-in and spent the past 6 days in Boston and New York, so I'm back, but it's tough to pick the game up again. It's that dead period you feel between major releases I think. I don't feel like PvP'ing all that much, but maybe I'll get 10 games in this weekend. Raids don't appeal to me outside our standard 25-man Gold Team raids, and really, what else is there to do?

Shall I start grinding cash again to buy 22 slot bags from Haris Pilton? I've just been saving up my gold recently to purchase recipes that I don't have off the auction house, but they are few and far between and going for even more outrageous prices any time I see them. I have no factions I can consistently grind - going out to Stromgarde is a royal pain in the butt gaining only 1 reputation point for each kill. I've been murdering centaurs in Desolace, but still only lose 3-5 reputation per kill, so the grind there is even more annoying.

But in the end, I see little reason to log on daily. What motivation do I have? Perhaps once I get moved into the new house and have less on my plate, the motivation to play again will return (there does look to be some fun stuff in 2.4.3), but in the meantime, I fear updates will be few and far between here.

OOC

((Probably no updates for a week or so as I just bought a house and I am currently in the process of cleaning it up - removing wallpaper, painting every room, installing new carpet, and then moving next weekend. Just an FYI. It certainly was weird to be walking around and thinking, "This is my house."))