I logged on to the beta this morning just to pootle about and play with what my hunter could do and check out some of the new pets.  I found a few little things which  I wanted to share.  If you don’t want to hear about beta stuff, look away now (obligatory image spacer for feed readers)! *ahem*

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Ah love takin’ pictures and posin’ fer some too but y’see it takes a wee bit o’ pokin’ aboot tae get the results ye want.

What we have here is a rare creature on this blog:  a post about blogging itself.  Not going too far, of course, it’s about something in particular I like to use on my blog (as do many others), namely images.

Images, pictures, portraits, doodles, sketches or representations - whichever type or flavour you pick it will generally enhance your posts.  I have always been a very image-centric person - I like art, animation and video as well as creating websites and ‘graphics’.  It was only natural for me, then, to add a lot of art and imagery to my blog when I began it, though it took a little while to get the kind of pictures I wanted.

Why use images?

Although bolding some of your sentences, adding headings, italics and using various ·lists as well as plenty of  s p a c e s can give structure to your posts I find that it is images which can make me stop and really look at a post.  I could insert a cheesy line about a picture saying a thousand words but, to be honest, I believe that the way I (and perhaps blogs in general) use them is more in line with adding pepper to soup - it enhances the ‘flavour’ of the surrounding text and makes it tastier to eat.  Read.  Devour?

Images can also be used as visual clues - when I write a post about my shaman I usually include a picture of him - same for my druid, rogue and hunter.  A lot of people use this method if they have multiple authors so it’s no big leap to utilise it if you’re a frequent, chronic sufferer of the dreaded altitis.  Using Aurik as a model I hope I can illustrate reasonably simply how I make shiny images for my blog assuming basic knowledge of image editing.

Before I begin I will note that this isnae a ‘how to make shiny images of awesome dhoom’, a guide on how to upload / capture pictures and it also definitely isnae the only way to do things.  It’s  simple few tips / short guide about how to make some half-decent, quick images for your blog - in my opinion, unless your blog is centred around the images you use then making them should not take longer than writing the post. *grin*

There are two types of images I will cover: Screenshots and WoWModelViewer based images.  I don’t really like non-game images in my WoW blog so I’m afraid that’s all yer getting from me.

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Bloody great big dragons! Ah mean, it’s all well knowin’ what’s goin’ on in Stormwind, but it’s a whole bloody other thing tae find a big flamin’ dragon when yer just mindin’ yer own business…

In an effort to stave off boredom I’ve been pottering about trying to do the Onyxia quests.  Finally got them done after a few hours of running back and forth and, for the first time, I walked through Stormwind and got to see Onyxia spawn! Sadly there were no curious lowbies around. *ahem* Now I only need a trip to UBRS!

Ah likes mah swords and ye cannae part me from them - solid, reliable, big, pointy swords.  But it seems there’s others aboot here that likes usin’ other types o’ weaponry…

As much as I have always been a lover of big-ass swords on my rogue I am also a huge fan of unusual weaponry - your bog standard staves, swords and maces are all good and well but who can really say they wouldn’t enjoy beating some murlocs with a rolling pin?

I know there are a lot of funky and unusual offhands in the game (fish, torches, wrenches, dynamite and flowers) but what I’m really looking at here are the really odd things that they allow you to beat mobs about the head with - things you might not have thought were really epic-fantasy style weaponry candidates.

Do you know how awesome it is, in fact, to run lowbies through Shadow Fang Keep with a two-handed spade, beating Worgen up with a satisfying CLANG?!

Most of my joy from this came from levelling my first paladin, a much loved but now abandoned Belfadin on  Sporeggar (EU RP-PVP).  He’s only level 49 but it was whilst levelling him that I became acquainted with my favourite weapon to date - [Silver Spade].  This, and others like it, add a little bit of fun to the usual grind and appeal to my collectors nature.  I was very excited to find that, as of a recent patch, [The Shoveler] is no longer warrior only and I hope to pick it up for my new Paladin as he levels.

In DnD I always was amused by the farmers implements which could be used as weapons and so it is with WoW.  Picks, shovels, skinning knives to start and then the more silly ones such as rolling pins and bones.  I’ve had a quick look through wowhead and wowmodelviewer in search of such interesting items but I’m afraid that I may have missed a few.  Still, this list is a good primer, at least, if you’re looking to start collecting or using some unusual weaponry of your own…

• Spade Model
• Pick Model
• Bone Model
  
• Rolling Pin
• Steins
• Scythes
• Pitchforks
• Broken Wine Bottle
• Plank with Nail
• Fish
• Mutton

(Excuse the radio silence of the last few days - I was off enjoying myself in London!)

Ah telt ye that thon bloody Paladin wis gonnae end up healin’ an’ a wis right.  Ah caught him goin’ we some other adventurers tae the Deadmines (they still huvnae sorted that wee problem oot it seems…) and he had some interestin’ clothes on.  In fact, when he came oot he had even more interestin’ clothes oan…

What is this monster I’ve created….

Sometimes ye know ye have the right tool fer the job - and ye know that cos ye kept it away in a corner when ye really shoulda thrown it oot! (and so the missus told ye five times).  Some things ah cannae bear tae part with - even if it means bein’ creative aboot findin’ a place for it.

Siha, over at Banana Shoulders, has asked us what we have kicking about our inventories which we don’t want to delete or vendor.  I didn’t think I could keep it to a sensible length for a comment so I figured I’d make a post about it.  This may be the first of several nostalgia-esque posts that seem to have crept into my mind in the last few weeks.

First off, I am a ‘mid-level’ hoarder.  I keep a lot of things - especially on the classes on which I enjoy more than one spec - but I am prone to ‘clear outs’ where I delete a pile of things which I no longer need.  I was never fortunate enough to gain tier armour from Pre-Burning Crusade so I don’t have that big a bag-space commitment for old gear but there are a few things that are taking up space which I can’t bring myself to give up.

Gear:

[Bloodrazor] + Letter
This sword was given to me by my other half who found it whilst grinding in Western Plaguelands.  The sword, plus the letter it came with, have their own special spot in my bank.

[Wolfshead Helm]
Given to me by the awesome Az, this helm became a staple of mine for grinding all the way from when I could first equip it until I hit Outlands.  Having this helm, with outfitter set to auto-switch it out after going into form, meant lots of energy and rage right at the start of combat.

Idols / Totems

I never throw any of these out, ever.  It’s one of those… things.  They seem connected to my characters in a way other equipment is not.

[Sang'thraze the Deflector]
I have this on my druid in the odd, odd hope that one day I will get [Jang'thraze the Protector] whilst boosting someone and can make them into [Sul'thraze the Lasher] … so that it can continue to sit in my bank and do nothing!

5 ‘Slow’ Mounts

I can never bear to get rid of my old mounts even if I never use them - I think I’ve only ever deleted one and it was an Alterac Valley Ram which I had only bought to get rid of some tokens… and even then I felt bad about doing it.  It’s a little silly but I wish they’d term it something different to ‘delete’ when it concerns pets / mounts.

Pets

Those of the non-combat variety.  I find it hard to delete any of these, even if I know that they’re only going to sit and gather dust.  I try to keep one or two in each characters bags to pull out when bored.  There’s a list of the ones I have squirreled away here.

Other Random Stuff…

Nagrand Cherries, Voodoo Skull, Mirren’s Drinking Hat, Red Rose and Simple Wildflowers.  I just can’t bring myself to delete any of these because I might just ‘want’ or ‘need’ them for something.

Wow is a paradise for collectors items - they throw them at you with every event and make numerous things avaiable whose only use is, for the most part, to sit in your inventory.  After looking at all of these I feel little like I should be taking the time to mabe utilise some of the random things I have in my bank rather than just leaving them to rust but I bet that in a years time most, if not all, of them will still be there…

So, as usual, this post is coming terribly late /sigh

I had the wonderful fortune, last time I was pottering about on the beta realm, to bump into a fellow EU-ite blogger!  Just as I was wandering through the leatherworking trainer’s shop I ran past an oddly familiar female human priest.  Cue a double take when I realised it was none other than Sephrenia from Guild Mum.  Oddly enough I’d just commented on her site saying I’d like to see her around on the beta if she was figuring on doing anything fun!

We chatted for a little bit, but I had to go grab some things on another char and made my farewells.  Since Softi was on and also chatting back and forth I suggested we make a wee channel for the EU bloggers instead of struggling to play about with a million whispers (multi-tasking, whassat?).

So, for any EU bloggers who happen to be on the beta, if you want to chat we’ve started a chat channel: eubloggers (yes, we’re terribly imaginitave *ahem*).  It’s not often we’ll get the chance to hang out together on one realm so I’d love to see anyone who happens to be about!

I don’t often rant here - in fact, I shy away from it like some sort of plague.  I do this as I know my rants tend to be very different to my usual writing form and, often, get slowly angrier as they progress.   However, I ask your forgiveness in this matter as, in reality, it is only my wish to put my point across vehemently which makes my wording so extreme or my writing a little more emphatic than usual.

So, what is this issue that has me irked, annoyed and agitated?  Well, at the moment quite a few things concerning the beta and people scrambling to denounce specs and classes as OP / UP before they’ve even had a chance to mature or even be completed.  Most of these I will not defend overly as I also do not know what will happen and arguments where both sides are based on speculation are generally somewhat… pointless?

One particular argument is one which is mostly based around personal feelings and beliefs (of which I have plenty experience *ahem*) is that of ‘Big Green Blob Syndrome’, or, “omg all the classes are losing their uniqeness /crai”.

My view on this? Mostly complete and utter nonsense.  Gaining a similar buff to a class or an ability which overlaps a now available buff does not make one class more or less unique than another.

The reason I’ve seen cited for these changes, by blue posters, is to make it so that you do not have to rely overly on stacking one class or deny a friend and good player a place on your raid team simply because they do not enjoy or have the gear for a ‘good’ raid spec (boomkins, retridins, MM hunters, frost mages for example).  Now I know you may wail and cry that there are examples of these specs already raiding and doing well but I have not yet heard of a guild who stacks boomkins - feral or resto are more useful for the ‘class benefits’ - in this case, battle res, innervate etc. - and the benefit of bringing two along is negligible - improved faerie fire cannot stack and the aura competes with the better buffs an elemental shaman could bring in their place, for example (alongside self res, a full set of totems, heroism…).

So, allowing a lot of classes to share buffs or simply making it so that similar buffs don’t stack no matter what the class is means that you only need “some dps, one with an AP booster, some tanks, one with an armor / AP reducer or slower, and some healers capable of… healing” rather than “we need at least two shamans, two priests, one warrior, one paladin tank, one survival hunter, two rogues, three warlocks and two mages minimum”.  The direction they are going in will allow for more freedom of choice for the player and for the raid as a whole.

You should be able to play with your friends and you should be able to play in a spec you like competitively. Burning Crusade was a step towards that (Wow, druids, shamans and paladins don’t have to be healers all the time?) and I’m hoping Wrath will continue the trend.  In fact, in my opinion, this allows for a far greater degree of individualism than if classes were restricted to one or two ‘amazing’ raid specs with the other being left in the dirt.

Crossover does not equal cross out, for example:

On my Shaman I rely heavily on +healing and mp5, holy Paladins in my guild also rely partially on these.  We both heal, use shields and choose similar ‘extras’ (rings, trinkets, food etc.). Does that mean we lack flavour compared to each other?  I don’t think so.  We’re very different classes.  If I gain a good, fast single target heal worth casting it still doesn’t make me a Paladin and a Paladin gaining some multi-target healing does not make them a Shaman.  Big mechanics - like totems and blessings, magical shields versus elemental shields, mitigation versus off-spec dps will always make these two healing specs feel very different.

However,  if need be I could single-target heal or they could raid heal without gimping the raid.  If we only have 8 paladins available for one evening why should that stop us from just saying ‘lets go!’?  Having similar skills across multiple classes simply means that a big glaring gap in their toolset (using the above example) as a healer has been reduced a little, allowing them to fill a healer spot rather than just a ‘paladin’ or ’shaman’ spot.

More specifically, having only certain classes able to ‘cleanse’ certain debuffs means having to build a raid around those classes for specific encounters.  Having these sorts of abilities as available from certain talents (without adding them as general class skills) means being able to have each specialist-spec have a tool-set wide enough to not be a burden simply by playing a class and spec they enjoy.

This is why I am supportive of the efforts to spread the love around, talents wise.  This is why I am glad they are doing so and why, I hope, others might begin to see all of this in a more positive light.

After half writing this post I noticed that Rohan at Blessing of Kings touched on another aspect of what I was trying to say in his post on the new buff system:

I think that, on the whole, this will be a good change for the game. There are some posters at EJ however, who feel that this will lead to a new form of raid stacking. Essentially, you figure out the minimum number of characters to cover all the buffs and debuffs, and then stack the rest of the raid with the flavour-of-the-month DPS class.

This is a possibility. However, in my view, there are essentially two types of raiding guilds: guilds which have access to multiple characters of every class and spec; and guilds which don’t. Maybe the first type of guild will stack, but they would have stacked anyways. But this change will make life a lot easier for the second type of guild, allowing much more leeway in recruitment and raid make-up.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment - hardcore raids who must have optimal setups will find a way to ‘exploit’ the new system.  Other guilds, who are more based around friendships or friendly, more paced raiding, will be able to raid more comfortably with an un-balanced number of one class or other.  I refuse to believe, at the moment, that granting buffs and abilities to multiple different classes will mean a loss of uniqueness for that class.  I believe, in fact, it does almost the opposite - allowing any one person to play their class in the spec they enjoy with the knowledge that they are a positive force for their raid group and friends.

Ah cannae say ah find the sight o’ the knickers o’ some big blue demon aw that appealin’ but Jhai seems tae be somewhat pleased a’ this picture she took.  Somethin’ about action shots an’ dreams and… well, ah don’t really want tae know why that lass is so keen on gettin’ hersel’ hit like that.  Druids, eh?

SQUEE I got to tank Prince, I got to tank Prince!  *ahem*

I know the screenie this week isn’t too amazing to look at but it marks a big achievement for me.  There are bigger bosses, there are badder bosses, there are more complex bosses to tank and we got about the easiest infernal drops you could hope for last night… But I TANKED PRINCE.  One of the main reasons I got so irked with my first druid / guild was being asked to sit out and dps whilst a warrior tanked.  I am not hugely fond of kitty dps (though it is growing on me now…) but I love tanking.  I wish you could have a section in the new achievements window to list ‘personal achievements’ - this is one I’d add.

I also tanked Attumen (I’ve only been on midnight before), Moroes, Maiden, Illhoof (had only done Kil’rek before) and Nightbane - and my guildies had to listen to me squeeing about tanking them each time, hehe.

This post brought to you by Anna Corp™.  The idea of the Friday Five RP questions intrigued me when Anna first posted them - I’m a fan of RP within and outwith World of Warcraft - but I wasn’t up to getting my thoughts together last week in a coherent enough form.

This week, though, I am in a writingful mood and the questions tickled my imagination enough that I decided, what the hey, lets have a go!  I’m going to go with Avarix for this first one as, despite being on a normal realm, I still assign character to my… characters.  It’s a good way of keeping myself amused whilst grinding but I don’t go nearly as in depth as  I would when making an RP character.  Doing these questions allows me to flesh out the little ponderings I’ve had about my various characters.

When is your character’s birthday?  Does he/she know?

Avarix is a springtime child - he was born sometime around the Azerothian equivalent of April 3rd.
What is your character’s favorite place in the world?  Why?

Avarix has lost all sense of Draenor as his home.  Destruction, pain and fear are all that are in the mind of the young Draenei when he thinks back to his time there.  Thus, it is in Azeroth that he finds himself seeking new and peaceful places.  His ‘apprenticeship’ under Nobundo, as with many others, has brought a new appreciation for the land and all it contains.

He has travelled to places that some humans, gnomes or dwarves would not dare tread, seeking guidance from the elements and it was this search which led him to his favourite place - Mulgore.   The soft, rolling, grassy plains, the high ridges and spires of earth on which the Tauren make their villages, and the sheer presence of the elements around the spiritual Tauren brought about his love for this place.

A close second would be the high spires of Thousand Needles - where the earth rises to meet the winds.

What kind of sense of humor does your character have (if any)?

Avarix has a rather wry, sardonic sense of humour - usually aimed at himself or the seriousness of those around him.  He knows he has a habit of being very ‘grandiose’ when he speaks about the elements and is still new enough to the teachings to feel that, perhaps, he sometimes is overeager to explain, talk, and expound about them.

Is your character introverted or extroverted?

Avarix is a little introverted - he does enjoy spending time with others but he’d rather sit at the back and listen than be at the forefront of the conversation.  He is a little shy around his new allies - hoping he will do nothing to disgrace himself, his people or his calling - and so is a little more relaxed when in the company of other shamans and Draenei.

What just irritates the hell out of your character?

Despite being very calm about most things, it pains Avarix to see the lands desecrated or destroyed - not just because of his newly found shamanism - but also because of the destruction caused wholesale by the Burning Legion and the effects thereof.  He has seen the destruction of his homelands and sees that the same is going on in Azeroth at the hands of those who should know better.  Willful destruction for profit is one of the few things which can cause the otherwise usually placid Shaman to see red.

Anna also linked wordle.net and I just had to have a go!