Elwynn Forest Photowalk

Elwynn Forest
Originally uploaded by alachia

Every time I find myself around the starting area of Elwynn Forest, I get very bored but also nostalgic. It's the starting character for a majority of my toons.. including the non human ones. I always get myself teleported here during the start of a new character.

Northshire Abbey, Fargodeep Mine, The Pumpkin Patch, and Hogger are very vivid in my mind as fun early experiences. I have since gotten bored of the entire area all together though... so I will not be too sad if Cataclsym rips the place to shreds.

I think more than anything, I miss being human in the game.

Taking Shots From Places You Can't Reach

ScreenShot_100209_210910
Originally uploaded by Quest Log Podcast

Posted by Quest Log Podcast on http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/

Taking shots from places you can't reach
If you're a Hunter or a Shaman then your in luck, you have the ability Eagle Eye or Far Sight respectively. Like myself you get these abilities early on and forget about them. They allow to select an area and your viewport is moved to there. You can only use this ability outdoors of course. Just remember to zoom in so you don't get the so you don't get the swirling golden light effect in all your shots. And once again a shot I took with the ability.

---------------------------
/facepalm!!!!
I hate it when I read posts like this because it reminds me of how noobish I am when it comes to vanity type spells. For example, there are times where I forget I have sentry totem, underwater breathing, and far sight! Now I'm super excited to take pics next week during the photowalk! New perspectives!

Swamp of Sorrows

 

Old Azeroth Photowalk was a lot better at 11am central today than at 9am. I was a lot more awake and able to function my brain. It also helped that we moved from Westfall from the last photowalk to Swamp of Sorrows.

It’s a much more visually interesting zone. However, as we strolled through the joint, it’s apparent there are still not many quests to be had out there.

 

We did stumble upon a few more alliance quests scattered about but not enough to make it worth coming out here to quest while leveling. At least, not enough to tempt me.

 

I’m unsure of this zone being touched during the great Cataclysm. Without this zone, Blasted Lands doesn’t have as much of a visual impact. It’s great being able to see the before and after of the area between the two zones after the Dark Portal and the resulting horde rampage into Azeroth.

 

Next week we head to the Blasted Lands. :)

11am central. Boulderfist PvP US Alliance. /join oldazeroth

I’m also starting to stream it on http://www.livestream.com/wowcast

To see the rest of the Old Azeroth collection:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth

Supersized Panderen

Supersized Panderen
Originally uploaded by alachia

Two people in our raid last night had gotten the Panderen Pet. One remarked that it was ONLY 10 bucks and the other (who I bought the pet for) said the 10 bucks was a bit pricey for the pet. However, both of them really enjoyed their pet and it got a lot of laughs from the raid.

I tossed a on them and super-sized them both. Man! First thing I thought of was what a shame Panderens couldn't be a race in WoW! Can you imagine the graphics of a panderen rogue? lol. awesome.

Anyhow, it was money spent and everyone who spent it was very happy and everyone in the game around the pets were very happy and amused. Was that not worth the 10 bucks? I spend 15 bucks on a second account I never access anymore so spending 10 bucks on something that actually does entertain in the game was well worth it for me. Would I prefer it for free? Heck yeah!! But I'm not opposed to cutting through the RNG bullshit of waiting on a boss drop (still bitter about the squashling) or buying 20 packs of TCG cards trying to get a Hippogryph Hatchling.

I guess it goes back to time vs money.

Let the Panderen Speak for Itself

Panderen Monk
Originally uploaded by alachia

This is a film of Jeppy's panderen pet. I didn't buy one for myself. I got one for someone else so I haven't seen what it looks like. He set up in Stormwind and was doing free showings.

It's account bound so you can get it on all characters! It does kungfu, it's fucking awesome. How can ANYONE say this is not worth 10 bucks??? I might have to get one for myself!

sorry for the video quality. all I had was my cam.. can't find my fraps.

Printwarcraft.com

(played with a portrait poster for Flipmax)

Started playing around with printwarcraft.com (doesn’t work with Chrome FYI). It’s quite good and fun. I will definitely be making a few posters.

 

At first I thought I might want a landscape poster since they show off backgrounds more…but after trying it a bit, I realized Draenei are too skinny and tall for the landscape portraits.

 

The customizations are pretty neat. Lots of backgrounds to choose from although I did not see my floating isle in Nagrand. LOL. It would also be awesome if I could change the character name so I could get my original spelling of Alachia.

 

My biggest problem is deciding which will the be the final poster. I’m so picky and will probably spend a few days tweaking the different possibilities.

No doubt these will make awesome Christmas gifts for friends. I plan on ordering a few as stocking stuffers. The only issue will be with all those alt-aholics out there. hehe.

Dead Man’s Party

You would have thought I'd learned my lesson by now after missing the [What a Long Strange Trip It's Been] Meta achievement because of one stupid RNG drop.....you'd think.

But here I am on [Dead Man’s Party] doing this one as well. I guess the truth is I'm a glutton for punishment. It did help that this one is easy.

I went to the graveyard of MY racial faction capitol city. Danced with a lady named Catrina. Boom, achievement completed!

In addition, I bought the [Recipe: Bread of the Dead] and the [Orange Marigold]. I had already brought the [simple flour] and [ice cold milk] with me. I then made the bread, used the Marigold to summon the spirits, found the spirit with a quest and turned it in. Now I have a cute little [Macabre Marionette] pet which no one knows is permanent or not. I hope it is.

I put the extra flour and milk in the guild bank so other guildies can hopefully use it. Don't want it to waste :)

Trick or Treats of Azeroth

I used Astarte66’s guide on the wowhead comments to do my Trick or Treats of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdom. Saved me a ton of time. These are the alliance flight paths. Made it easy for me to watch Sunday Football and do my achievements at the same time.

Alliance Kalimdor
1 Teldrassil, Dolanaar
2 Darnassus, Craftsmen's Terrace
3 Darkshore, Auberdine
4 Exodar, Seat of the Naaru (inside the inn, up the ramp)
5 Azuremyst Isle, Azure Watch
6 Bloodmyst Isle, Blood Watch
7 Winterspring, Everlook (careful if you are hated here)
8 Ashenvale, Astranaar
9 Stonetalon Mountains, Stonetalon Peak
10 Desolace, Nijel's Point
11 Feralas, Feathermoon Stronghold
12 Silithus, Cenarion Hold
13 Tanaris, Gadgetzan (careful if you are hated here)
14 Dustwallow Marsh, Mudsprocket
15 Dustwallow Marsh, Theramore Isle
16 Barrens, Ratchet (careful if you are hated here)
Take the boat to Booty Bay and start on Eastern Kingdom

Alliance Eastern Kingdom
1 Stranglethorn Vale, Booty Bay (carefull if you are hated there)
2 Westfall, Sentinel Hill
3 Duskwood, Darkshire
4 Stormwind, The Trade District
5 Elwynn Forest, Goldshire (do quests to put out the fire)
6 Redridge Mountains, Lakeshire
7 Ironforge, The Commons
8 Dun Morogh, Kharanos (outside of Iron Forge)
9 Loch Modan, Thelsamar
10 Wetlands, Menethil Harbor
11 Hillsbrad Foothills, Southshore (compleate quests at Southshore)
12 Hinterlands, Aerie Peak (inside, through the tank room, up stairs)
13 Eastern Plaguelands, Light's Hope Chapel

I am now only waiting on the damn RNG to go in my favor to get my squashling. Otherwise, I miss the meta achievement for whole year. :( *crosses fingers*

Tome of Valor Westfall Discovery

Westfall
Originally uploaded by alachia

Found this nifty little farm during the Westfall photowalk today. I had never seen it before if you can believe that. I was told by @eljeppy that it's for a Paladin quest called Tome of Valor


So unbelievable that I've leveled in that zone for nearly 5 yrs and have just now discovered something so obvious!

to see more of the Westfall pics, check out: http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/

STV Captured

Kicked off the first Saturday morning photowalk. It was sort of last minute so only a few people were able to join me. Also, smarty pants me decided to kick it off in Stranglethorn Vale in conjunction with Pirate's Day! GANK city.

I barely got my achievement before being massacred. I figured it's nice to get this zone out of the way though. On my PvP server, it's hell and hard to relax while taking shots of everything.

I'm doing these by zones every Saturday around 9am (although I'm questioning my morning strategy because I was quite the zombie today). I figure if I do them one by one, I'll be more likely to upload and tag all the pictures correctly as opposed to a massive undertaking and then trying to convince myself to upload the bulk at one time.

Thanks to @azyxa and @jeppy (Flipmax, Bearfus, and Felix) for taggin' along on the adventures here and there. It was nice not being the sole receiver of a gankage. lol.

I can't say I'll miss Stranglethorn Vale much. The parts I'll miss the most are the Goblin Statue at Booty Bay, King Mukla the giant king kong gorilla, and the Guribashi Arena. Other than that, I probably won't miss this slaughter zone if they plan to destroy it. With my luck, it'll be the one zone they leave in tact.

Old Azeroth Highlights

Here are some great highlights from the http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth flickr set. Thanks to everyone for helping to post!

     

   

   

 

  

   

1. Sunken Temples , 2. Dancing trolls!, 3. Thunder Bluff, 4. Hyjal, 5. My WoW House!, 6. Cenarion Hold, 7. Maraudon, 8. Blood Myst Isle, 9. Crystal Lake of Elwynn Forest, 10. Dwarven Farm 2, 11. Felwood, 12. Darnassus

Higher Learning is Hard

Higher Learning is Hard
Originally uploaded by alachia

I camped the Dalaran Visitor Center for about an hour and got one book so I thought I'd go ahead and try for another book.

I don't think I have the patience for [Higher Learning] lol. I've tried checking after server restarts but the problem is I'm not around most of the time when servers reset. I also can't find the book channel for my server. I'm tempted on getting on my priest to use the Mind Vision guide to the books I read on the WoWhead comments.

/cleartarget
/targetexact [button:1,nomod]Afsaneh Asrar;[button:2,nomod]Sandra Bartan;[button:1,mod:ctrl]Archivist Betha;[button:2,mod:ctrl]Archmage Timear;[button:1,mod:alt]Rhonin;[button:2,mod:alt]Zidormi;
/cast Mind Vision

I hear it works for keeping tabs on all the book locations to see if they've spawned. It'll beat putting my watch on a 4 hour spawn timer or staring at a corner for a couple of hours.

Old Azeroth DB Project

As mentioned in the last Warcast episode, the Old Azeroth photo database has begun. I created a flickr group called “oldazeroth” - http://www.flickr.com/groups/oldazeroth/

I’m already enjoying looking through the posted pics and seeing some serious old school stuff. Do any of you guys remember that island we got water from for MC?!!! LOL.

Originally Uploaded by iStarman

There are definitely a couple of places I wanted to make sure I get pics of again before anything happens to them. I know there is plenty of time but if you factor in procrastination x 100, I just know I’ll probably forget a bunch. Like the Twin Colossals in Ferelas! Gotta get back up there and buy a parachute for sure. Also wondering if I should try to get the Winterspring Alliance mount before it’s gone or the UBRS key? I already went ahead and got my sprite darter pet this past weekend.

I don’t want to get carried away but I figured these could be good weekend projects. I’m also wondering if the Explorer title will change once the world is different. Most importantly I really just need to get my archived pictures posted to the group.

I wrote up this post for those of you who are like me and have a disgusting amount of screenshots to go through. I’ll do a follow up post to this one later today of some of the great highlights from the Old Azeroth group.

--------------------------------------------------------

Tackling your Large Archives One Step at a Time

If you're a bit overwhelmed like me with archived screenshots that you're going through, here are a few tips.

1) Do not undertake throwing them all up at once. You'll get too overwhelmed with years of screenshots and give up.

2) Take the time to archive your photos by year. WoW stores your photos with this naming convention: WoWScrnShot_122805_001631
"122805" Indicates December 28,2005.

3) On choosing pics to upload, tackle quarter to half years worth of shots at a time only! Make a list and just check off where you left off. When you have more free time, tackle the next set.

4) Use Flickr Uploader! www.flickr.com/tools/uploadr/
It makes naming, BULK TAGGING, and BULK grouping pics soooo much easier. (tagging is key)

Disney-fied….Blizzardized

You know that term when something has been Disney-fied? It’s a combination of dumbing down the complexity of something as well as making it family friendly. My best example is The Little Mermaid with the cute little Ariel and her happy ending with the prince and her plucky singing companions. The real story by Hans Christian Andersson is often disputed but the gist of the story is extremely tragic and sad.

 

However, in its Disney-fied form, the Little Mermaid became a house hold name and almost every family with kids has it tucked away on the movie shelf.

 

I was thinking about it and I feel like Blizzard has the same concept down for the game industry. They know the right combination of simplifying and structuring a game so that it can become household.

 

The very first time I was told about WoW, the exact wording was “I think you’ll actually like this MMO. It’s a friendlier and easier version of Final Fantasy. You’ll level like a 100 times faster.” And then when you compare the raiding experience of those who played EQ vs WoW, you’ll also see how they were able to simplify down the complexity of group play to make things so much easier.

(Very Old EQ Raiding footage)

 

And since it’s initial release, we’ve seen even further Blizzardizing of our game. Like I’ve said before, I no longer QQ this anymore. I think it’s great for turning WoW into one of the first fully functional social network/MMOs. I can’t wait to see it’s full evolution.

 

My theory about Blizzardizing are all focused on the new IP they have yet to announce. The new MMO boasts to be nothing like WoW and they say they are NOT afraid of it eating away a load of the WoW subscribers either. Of course, if you’re blizzard and sh1t more money when you bend over than most countries make in a decade, there is little reason to fear anything. (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/08/blizzard-co-interview/)

 

I have high hopes that the new IP will be a Blizzardized version of EVE online and the Star Wars MMO. If anyone can harness the epic complexity of fleets, galaxies, and empires, it’s gotta be Blizzard. That’s my prediction anyhow. And if Blizz can nab the Sci-Fi MMO genre, it will have globally take over the fantasy world.

 

Right now, EVE owns the sci-fi MMO genre and it’s epic nature and quality of real world over flow in terms of economics and politics makes it an extremely fascinating game. Just read here about how in-game economics reflects real world banking fraud (http://kotaku.com/5348223/bank-deficit-freezes-eve-accounts). The lifestyle and culture of this game play into full emersion of global empires and the real intricate and dynamic play for power among corporations. Just reading a few years ago about the underhanded, backstabbing infiltrations and heists that can happen and are designed so they CAN happen gave me chills (http://eve.klaki.net/heist/).

 

(Eve Online: Apocrypha Trailer)

 

However, it is also the complexity of this game play can be very overwhelming for virgin gamers. And no matter how much I love the sci-fi genre (one of the reasons I loved Outlands as much as I did) I just can’t wrap my head into existing as a ship. I also find getting lost as a tiny dot in a massive empire to be unappealing.

 

I have no doubt that if Blizzard’s IP draws from EvE or any other massive Sci-Fi game, they’ll be able to bring its usual appeal of autonomy of individual play and game simplification while still capturing the fascinating draw of the sci-fi world.

3 Trees Freya

I remember several weeks ago when we first attempted Freya with three trees still up (hardmode). Ground Tremor damage, sunbeams, and f*ck tons of damage all around. Everyone was screaming at me “Uncle! Uncle! No more!” lol.

 

So we stopped and pushed on to the other hard modes in Ulduar. However, now that we’re all a helluva lot more geared I thought we might be able to give her and her damn trees another go.

 

It was a three part learning experience for the hardmode. My raid group sometimes takes a little bit of drilling to finally get into the right mode.

 

First part: Yells for ground tremor means stop casting. No really, STOP!

 

Second part: Fury and Sunbeam on you or people around you means GTFO!

 

Third part: Learn to kite the Detonating Lashers (timing how much dps would be enough to not blow them up but give us enough time to nova them, kite away, and finish them off before they moved)

 

The third was the hardest and the only part that stopped us from downing her in the first hour of the raid. It finally took us gauging how much damage would lower the lashers enough to not destroy them and then timing frost nova rotations perfectly so we could kite away from the lashers before they blew us all up. For us it was 35% HP on the lashers before frost novas and running away and finishing them off with mage aoe.

 

This would have been so much easier with our hunter but he just happened to be out of town this weekend. LOL.

 

Now we’re down to one more Sigil before we can unlock Algalon and finally fully clear Ulduar. Of course, the one thing standing in our way is Hardmode Mimiron which we have never attempted before! DOH! Guess it’s time to push that button!

Whose your Daddy?

Okay the title of the post has nothing to with the topic except it’s a lyric in the video music posted here. I thought it was a hilarious song…goes great with this video. Thanks to LoanzWow for posting it on youtube.

This video is a response to the question I asked myself about the Worgen race. I wanted to know what part of the worgen is customizable. Do you customize your human form or the worgen form. It looks from this video that it’s the worgen form that you tweak.

I was reading that they might end up using just a random human form or a generic human form for the transformation. I’m hoping that they allow human customization. I might have to rethink my desire to be worgen if I can’t make my static Alachia human form. That would be terribly disappointing.

Another kind of WoW play

Violet Eye Exalted
Originally uploaded by alachia

A few months ago, two of the peeps in Bindpoint started a tradition of running an instance every Saturday morning. It wasn't about XP or Quests so much as it was about just scheduling an activity to do together.

This past weekend we were fortunate enough to get enough people in the morning to run Karazhan for the fun of it. I just love this place and really enjoyed seeing it again. It was a well designed raid instance and my favorite to date. There has been nothing since as intriguing as Karazhan for me.

A part of me would love to see a restored version of Karazhan in the Cataclysm but another part me loves it too much in it's current decayed and dark state. I doubt they'll touch it but you never know.

You know, when we were in there we all tried to get the Worgen book to turn into worgens. Unfortunately, none of us had any luck. Guess we'll just have to wait till the expansion.

Return of Heroics

Return of Heroics
Originally uploaded by alachia

A month ago, you'd ask in guild or general chat, "anyone want to run the Daily Heroic?" and you'd get the reply "wtf for?!"

However, now that the Heroic Daily Dungeon quest yields you two [Emblem of Triumph]s everyone is once again hitting up 5-mans.

I think this is great as it once again motivates people to group up and gives people a reason to run more of the content (again). To be honest, I thought I was totally done running heroic 5-mans after running the list for [Glory of the Hero]. Oddly enough, I started missing the dynamics of running a 5-mans. They're super intimate and are usually very easy and require little to no concentration so you have a lot of time to goof around and just chatter unlike raiding.

Also on a PvP server, the return of heroics means more ganking. lol. Outside of every heroic daily instance portal you can pretty much expect to see a pile of corpses. If you're lucky, you outnumber the horde but more often than not on Boulderfist, we take a beating trying to make it inside the instance.

Dwarfageddon Achievement

Dwarfageddon Achievement
Originally uploaded by alachia

In case you ever wanted to know what 100 Steelforged Defenders dying in under 3 seconds looks like. Tharrrr it is!

We had both of our chopper guys gather all of them and we lined up the siege engines and demolishers up near the front without doing any damage. Once they brought the heard of dwarves back to us, we unloaded and WHAM, achievement achieved.

It was pretty impressive though just to see that many dwarves running at you. It's probably the only fun I've had during the Flame Leviathan encounter besides nuking pyrite at the boss and seeing 100,000+ damages going off.

I'm not a fan of vehicle fights... yet.

Human Shaman

Human Shaman
Originally uploaded by alachia

New racial/class combination? I wish.

Today's daily heroic was the Culling of Stratholme. Whenever you go into any of those Caverns of Time instances, your race is adjusted according to the history of the Lore.

In my case, there were no space ghosts in Azeroth at the time Arthas went medieval on this town. So, for just a short period of time, I get to my very much desired HUMAN SHAMAN!!!