I may be slightly mad, a bit tired and my fingers are sore from pressing healing buttonz hard… but I has my puppy from Looking for Multitudes (and a hug from the dev team!) /happy /sleep

The model is really nice, the texturing and animations are sweet – like the corehound. Though, as you can see, he has some unsavoury habits…

On a separate, but related,  note: I love the new LFG tool!

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I’ve continued my busy streak this week, tidying up loose ends:

Netherwing Exalted

I mentioned that I was using far sight to scout the Netherwing mines out for eggs – one time I managed to far sight outside of existance! I think I centred my far sight a little too high and ended up seeing the  mines from outside of the 3d-space.  Somewhat cool – I could see the crust burster mobs loller-skating underneath the ground.  As you can also see from this screenshot (randomly at the same time), Softi got her mount! Big gratz, Softimoo!

After spending about 4 days grinding eggs, and nearly giving up when it got to stupid-o’clock on the last day, a lucky streak of finds and drops brought me to the eggs I needed to grab exalted Netherwing.  I was so tired I knew I wouldn’t enjoy getting my ‘little ding’ there and then, so I played the delayed-gratification game and left the last egg until I logged in the next morning.

I’m pretty sure we killed this guy, but apparently he’s still hanging out in Black Temple, and now expecting the Dragonmaw Commander to bring him my carcass.  Oh well, sucks to be him.  *ahem* In all honesty, I really do miss Black Temple. Nostalgia is really setting in for ‘the good old TBC days’.  Loving my tbc-style netherdrake, too:

Hordeside Inclinations

Look, Ma, I’m a tauren! I sent a little note to a player who had a mulgore hatchling listed on the auction house – the second I’d tried – and asked if she’d be willing to trade her hatchling for any of the Alliance pets, as I have some seals spare, now.  I got a message back saying she was and only a few hours later was the proud owner of a [Mulgore Hatchling]! On Bloodhoof the horde-side pets are rarely going for anything under 5k gold on the Alliance auction house (and the neutral one!) so I was rather happy to be able to trade – I’ve set myself an amount for spending on pets and that was far and away more than my limit.

I have always been a Tauren at heart, and I miss my horde characters, so having both my kodo and hatchling is soothing to that side of me.  Tauren in spirit, if not in form.

Whelp!

After 15 levels of grinding whelps, a total of 3884 whelpling kills, I finally got one.  I honestly thought the bugger was never going to drop and had resigned myself to moving on if I reached level 50 without getting one.  Cue a great deal of squeeing and joy in guild chat (and real life…heh).  I don’t know if I will have the stamina to go back and try for the other two for a while, but the joy of grinding them far outweighs that of just buying them, so I will, no doubt, eventually subject myself to that particular grind again.

It’ll be odd to actually quest on my priest again – I’ve barely done any so far, just under 200 at level 47.  Outlands in 11 levels.  I think I can manage that…

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Lil’ Game Hunter

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Children’s week follows hotly on the heels of Noblegarden this year – a double-whammy of eventful goodness.  Children’s week has fewer achievements than most holidays, but it has trickier ones and a whole pile of quests to do and some nice rewards for pet collectors.

Achievements

For The Children

• Home Alone
• Daily Chores
• School of Hard Knocks
• Bad Example
• Aw, Isn’t It Cute?
• Hail to the King, Baby

Not needed for the meta, but an available achievement:

• Veteran Nanny

As of last night, Home Alone was bugged and resetting all the time – I would expect that we’ll see a patch or fix for this soon if it’s not already been done since I went to sleep!

Bad Example requires several cooking-only items alongside a pile of vendor-bought treats so I whipped up a quick list of where each comes from.

Stormwind / Orgrimmar

Usually this ice cream is buyable from Shimmering Flats, but for the duration of the holiday there are vendors in Stormwind and Orgrimmar where you can purchase some ice cream!  You’ll also need this ice cream for giving to your old-world orphan so don’t throw any spare away! (it sells in stacks of five, like most of this food does)

• [Tigule and Foror's Strawberry Ice Cream]

Dalaran Vendor

Aimee, the high elf vendor near the northern bank in Dalaran sells these treats – the lovely cake slice comes from the Lovely Cake she sells – you get 5 pieces per cake you buy so you could share with a friend of take them all and send them to alts.

• [Lovely Cake Slice]
• [Red Velvelt Cupcake]
• [Dalaran Donut]
• [Dalaran Brownie]

Crafted

You’ll either need to craft these, get a guildie to make them, or buy them off of the auction house.  Personally I recommend not going to the auction house as, unless you’re lucky, delicious chocolate cakes will cost a fortune.  Happily for me, someone was selling the cupcakes for 1g / cake.  Extortionate, really, except for the fact others were selling northern eggs – which are required to make them -  for about 15g / 1.  A great place to farm small eggs for the chocolate cake recipe is just outside of Auberdine – i’m not sure if there’s a closer place for the horde (see below) but the moonkins here have a 90+% drop rate and are packed relatively close.

• [Delicious Chocolate Cake]
• [Tasty Cupcake]

Indigo:  Second, a little hint about the small egg farming: belf starter zone is full of dragonhawks with a 100% droprate, and about 50% chance that they actually drop 2.

Quests

Remember: All of the achievements require you to have an orphan out, do not complete the ‘Back to the Orphanage’ or ‘Warden of the <Faction>’ quests until you’re done with achievements as you will then not be able to take out your orphan any more!

Sephrenia:  You can give your orphans back to get your pet rewards. If you talk to one of the matrons again she will give you a new orphan to care for during the rest of the week. I tested it in SW, so is not just a rumour :D

Stormwind / Orgrimmar Quests

Stormwind Orphan // Orgrimmar Orphan

• A Warden of the Alliance // A Warden of the Horde
• Spooky Lighthouse // Gateway to the Frontier
• The Stonewrought Dam // Down at the Docks
• The Bough of the Eternals // Lordaeron Throne Room

Each of these is a visit to somewhere reasonably close to each faction’s main cities – having extra hearth cooldowns here is handy and the new 30-min cooldown will probably help a lot but if you don’t have this luxury then I reccomend:

Alliance: Start in Ironforge – > Fly to Thelsamar – Ride to Stonewrought Dam -> Fly to Westfall – Ride out to the Lighthouse -> Fly to Stormwind – Boat to Thelsamar -> Fly to Darnassus.  Don’t forget to pick up some ice cream for your orphan whilst you’re in Stormwind!

Horde: Start in Orgrimmar -> Fly to Ratchet- Ride down to the Docks -> Fly to Crossroads or Orgrimmar – Ride to the Mor’shan Rampart -> Ride back to Orgrimmar – take the Zeppelin to Undercity – Ride into the throne room. Don’t forget to pick up some ice cream for your orphan whilst you’re in Orgrimmar!

I suggest you save your hearthstone for once these are done, as you’ll get more quests which require zipping about the world:

• You Scream, I Scream… // You Scream, I Scream…
• Jaina’s Autograph // Cairne’s Hoofprint
• A Warden of the Alliance // A Warden of the Horde

If you got your ice cream on the way past Orgrimmar and Stormwind, the first should be easy.  For Jaina’s Autograph you can portal to Ironforge -> fly to Menethil and take the boat or, if you want to be lazy, portal to Gadgetzan (Caverns of Time) and fly there.  The final part requires you to return your orphan back to the capital city you got them in.

Shattrath Quests

Alliance Orphan // Horde Orphan

• A Trip to the Dark Portal // A Trip to the Dark Portal
• Auchindon and the Ring of Observation // Visit the Throne of the Elements
• Time to Visit the Caverns // Time to Visit the Caverns
• Jheel is at Aeris Landing! // Hch’uu and the Mushroom People
• Time to Visit the Caverns // Time to Visit the Caverns

These are all in Outlands – if you have an epic flyer, use that, if not, flightpaths are your friends.  It’ll take a little while as Outlands is pretty big but all of them are relatively easy.  For the Alliance, visiting the Ring of Observation, you need to take your orphan right up to the meeting stone to get credit.

• The Seat of the Naaru // Now, When I grow Up…
• Call on the Farseer

I’m not sure what they’ve done with the horde side quest since they took Mu’ru away – I know it used to have a follow up to the ‘visiting Silvermoon’ section, too, but I can’t find any information on that and I haven’t been on my horde character for a while now.  Any info from someone whose done it would be appreciated!  Once this is all done…

• Back to the Orphanage // Back to the Orphanage

Most of these are easy enough to fly around and, hopefully, by the time you get to ‘Time to Visit the Caverns’ your hearth will be off cooldown.  Remember you can portal directly to the Caverns of Time from Dalaran or you can go from Shattrath if you’ve got revered reputation with the Keepers of Time.

PvP

Child Soldiers…

Once again there’s some pvp in the event’s achievements.  I didn’t mind the other ones too much but the ones for children’s week are particularly obnoxious. I can only offer what I was trying for those who cannot get premades:

• AB: Either be lucky and get to the farm / stables first or wait until a flag is capped and you see all the horde run off.  If you’re lucky you might get a hordie / alli to ‘trade’ captures with you.
• WSG: This was the most painful for me – I was eventually ’saved’ from my plight of fighting 6 people for the return by a friendly tauren (Achuk?) who ran into our flag room, took the flag and dutifully waited to be killed.  I tried to return the favour but some people seemed intent on winning or something silly like that…  If you want to help the other faction you can run into their room, spam a /wait macro, grab the flag and then click the buff to remove it and drop the flag.  If they aren’t silly you can do this a few times for everyone to get their achievements.
• EOTS: Stand in the middle and ignore the pained cries from your teammates who’re not doing the achievements.  Thunderstorm is lovely here by the way.  Spell reflect is not! Hehe.
• AV: Either run down the bottom and hope you’re fast enough and get to a tower before someone else or stay up the top end and re-cap horde towers once they take them.  Otherwise, hope you get a friendly hordie who is kind enough to take the flag not one, but four or five times to let you all have a shot at taking the flag.  Roben, I salute you!

I think that Blizzard picked the wrong kind of things  for this achievement – they encourage bad play and I get the feeling that it will only frustrate pvpers to have a bunch of pve nubs come in and ruin their games just to get achievements done.  I know there are some pvpers who pve and vice versa but I would guess by what I seen last night that the pve-ers who care about achievements outnumber those who care about winning games…

On the up-side, as you may be able to see from my blog’s sidebar I  earned a few pvp-based achievements last night from these:

• Not In My House
• Storm Capper

Rewards

Title

For all of the achievements complete you get the title Matron or Patron.  It’s not a title I’ll be using but I guess it’s kind of cute and will probably be nice for some people on RP servers or for those who are guild Mums.

Reputation

Doing all of the holiday quests nets a tidy little packet of reputation for your faction’s cities.  If you’re not already exalted or can’t be bothered doing the argent dailies for rep, then make sure to do these quests and boost your rep!

Pets

The yearly pet reward for Children’s Week will be a welcome boost to many people’s collections – especially those like me who’re sitting so very close to 75 pets (i’ve had no luck with baby dragons and crocs nor do I have the MgT pet on Ava – chainging mains sucks sometimes, hehe).

From the Stormwind // Orgrimmar orphans:

• [Piglet's Collar]
• [Turtle Box]
• [Rat Cage]

From the Shattrath orphans:

• [Egbert's Egg]
  
• [Elekk Training Collar]
• [Sleepy Willy]

You could always take the [Curmudgeon's Payoff], of course, but 5 gold really is hardly worth it these days unless you’re really anti-pets.

As a small aside, if you have a warcraftpets account, remember to update it! (though the poor site is a little sickly at the moment).

Orphans

I still can’t get past hoping that they’ll add orphans for each faction.  It’d be nice for my druid to take a night elf child around and teach them about Darnassus and its alliance with the other nations, or a Tauren child for my horde druid, to show them why we must ally with questionable types!  I guess I just feel it’s a little odd than only four factions seem to have any children running about.

Replayability

This is something I like to look at with all events – is it worthwhile to do again, has it been updated?  Children’s week was updated last year and I had hoped they would add another set of quests this year for Dalaran (or the Oracles / Frenzyhearts).  With Noblegarden so close, though, and such a big content patch, too, I can’t blame them but I do rather hope they add something new next year.

Children’s week is rather odd in the fact that year-to-year the same rewards are available but you’re limited to two of six – or more realistically, you’re limited to two sets of one out of three.  This means that to get the full compliment of ‘items’ you have to re-do it each year.  I do like this to some extent – though, as a character who has changed mains twice now, it can be a little frustrating.  It does keep the interest in the holiday alive, though, and Children’s Week was one of the few events I always seen people participating in pre-achievements and pre-epic rewards.

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First, a minor rant I want to get out of the way…

I love events, a look over this blog should tell you that – I also like achivements – I find them fun – I like that they encourage me to seek out certain things and do silly stuff I might not otherwise have tried but I am getting a bit tired of the holiday ones. Now, don’t get me wrong – I still like the little dings of the achievements there and I don’t mind a little extra work to get them done and spending maybe an hour or so more on an event than I might have done otherwise but achivements have meant my holiday fun is being ruined by people who don’t give a shit about the event but want the achievement points or the proto-drake.

I’m not really talking about the spawn camping, the egg-stealing and general asshattery going on. Shit happens, people do stupid things for pixels, whatever.  That I can deal with or write about and thusly feel better.  What I really, really dislike is none of those.  It’s comment like so:

“this holiday is shit”

“I don’t want to farm these stupid eggs”

“omg this is so boring”

I can even understand that they might not enjoy an event, that’s fine.  But I really, really, don’t want to have to listen to it constantly.  It’s like coming to my birthday and saying ‘hi, this party kinda sucks… you only have jelly and no ice cream’.   If you’re determined to have a bad time, you will and by sitting whining about it, you’re affecting my ability to have a good time too.  There are ways to express dislike which are less ruinous of others fun, in my opinion – “I don’t like this event, it’s a bit grindy for me” is better than “this sucks, I cba”.

Even better, you have the choice not to do it at all.  You want your proto drake?  Noone is forcing you to do it – there are other ways to get a proto drake.  It’s like you’re farming for the time-lost and whining about it not spawning fast enough or never being there when you go – stop doing it or stop whining about it.

I actually was personally enjoying the event – I did camp a small spot, but mainly because my wrist got sore after running in a circle for a while.  Whilst I was there I ended up chatting and doing silly stuff with the others who had settled down to guard their little patches and chatted away quite happily, commiserating their 8th dress or celebrating a bunny pet.

As I see it, holiday’s are a social occassion – many people are pushed into a smaller area and are completing the same thing at the same time – they are meant as chances to get together, have fun and bump into people we wouldn’t usually.  If you are so jaded that you cannot see your way to having fun during an event which turns you into a bunny, or asks you to wear silly clothes, or run around planting flowers in the desert or chasing female orcs then I suggest the problem is not the event, but you.

Anyway…

Pretty in Pink with Pets

I had gone to Shattrath to see what the daily fishing quest was and, because of things I’d been doing just before that, both my hearthstone and my astral recall were on cooldown for another few minutes.  Since I was sitting around doing nothing I figured I’d take a few pictures of my new brood and erm wardrobe.

Bunny ears look rather oddly like they should be part of a male draenei’s body… Taking a picture of a rabbit whose ‘idle’ behavior is to run around is no mean feat – he just wouldn’t sit still! I really like the Dun Morogh cub – the proportions and colour are cute and, of course, who could not love the sapling – your own personal dancing treelet!  It’s possibly a good thing that Shattrath City is so quiet these days with how much I was cavorting about.

Shadow Priesting

When not doing my argent dailies i’ve been taking a little time to play on my baby priest – she hit level 40 and I gleefully snapped up shadowform – I’ve always liked the effect it has and how it turns mounts into shadow-mounts, too.  I’m not too sure I like the fact it turns my black stallion’s feathers an odd pink colour, though!

Pot Luck

Finally, I found these nodes in borean tundra when I was doing my fishing daily.  One was moonglow cuttlefish, the other deep sea monsterbellies!

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[Pink Murloc Egg] arrived today – sent from Vaneras, no less! I was thrilled to find out that, despite warnings otherwise, my new murloc friend was account bound and so I now have a whole herd (swarm, gaggle?) of baby murlocs across all of my alts.  The second picture, annoyingly, was taken seconds after the wee bugger had stopped dancing – damn me not being fast enough at swinging the camera around.

His feet make the most amusing squelchy pitter patter as he runs…

/squee

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Ok, so, this post is terribly late as usual but the madness of levelling and new content and whatnot has distracted me even further.

I hit level 80 around 2am last Friday, deliberately making it a discovery-ding (the best kind!)  Looks kind of awesome getting that ding spell effect in the air, too!

I skipped Howling Fjord and Sholazar so I have something new for my alts to go through – I was rather glad I spent my last level and a half in Storm Peaks as it has some awesome quests and some pretty interesting utilisations of the new quest mechanics and vehicle technology which I might otherwise have left until ‘later’ to do (much like I find it hard to be motivated to do Icecrown after the mammoth levelling session I’ve just completed…).

Also, if I hadn’t levelled in Storm Peaks I might not have nabbed this pretty yet:

If you’re thinking that the [Reins of the White Polar Bear] (really, did they have to specify white?) looks a little small you’d be right – here’s a comparison versus the brown armored mount you can buy in Dalaran (thanks to Grav for modelling with his bear!):

Of course, only  a few days after that we’re all given a baby polar bear!  Khi was as delighted as I was and promptly took a rather nice screenie!

I’m a little overloaded at the moment and now that I’m 80 I’m trying not to overdo it too much – we’ve got long road ahead of us and I see no point in running to the end just to wait and get bored – some might see the road as ending at 80 but not me, nosir.  I’ve done my running, I’ve tired myself out and now is the time to go at a slow and steady pace.  Ok, I think I’ve probably worked that metaphor to death now…

Like many others I also started a Death Knight.  Despite plans to start a little dwarfette, I played around on the beta and came to the decision to roll a draenei.  I know, I know, I love my dwarves but sadly the dwarven animations look rather old compared to the shiny new draenei ones and I really, really, can’t stand the female dwarf casting animations.  I deleted my poor, forgotten, level 11 mage and brought her back as an undead killing machine.  They share looks and names so, in my mind, my mage ‘became’ a Death Knight and I’m levelling her with that in mind.  When I say levelling, though, I mean leaving her to build up rest-xp in Hellfire.  *ahem*

Azmoo also rolled a female draenei death knight and I ran over to meet him to see how closely they resembled one another.   Could almost be sisters, it seems, hehe…

My girl is the one in the middle – she shares a look with the progenitor of the name I also gave her – a female toll warrior I have on Sporeggar – Yjin (silent j!).  I’ll be updating the blog with her profile soon and updating my outdated character page.  I might also add something to th sidebar as I feel having Aurik at the top of the page and doing posts about healing has confused people as to what class I play (I’ve seen a few references to myself as a paladin, hehe).

I’m really in the mood to draw one of my chars doing something cool in Northrend but I’m not sure what yet! Any ideas on the back of a comment and posted below, please! *ahem*

Other than that I’ve been trying to motivate myself to finish off some quests for rep, poke about herbing on my hunter, and do every heroic I can.  I’ve respecced to resto (I was just getting to enjoy elemental, dual specs can’t come fast enough, goddamnit!) but I’m actually gathering off-spec enhance gear again – I’d really like to try it out as it now looks a lot more interesting than I felt it was before.

Enough of the rambling from me – back to playing!

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It’s jumpin’, there’s a buzz in the air, people are feelin’ stirrin’s deep doon and its like some sort o’ adrenaline rush goin’ aroon.  Old friends are poppin’ up, people are goin’ back to their roots… Everyone’s heard that there’s somethin’ brewin’ up north and they’re sortin’ their afairs.  It’s excitin’ but ah’m no half feelin’ that ah could be doin’ wi’ a quiet corner and a wee pint an’ a hauf.

Pets, mounts, achievements, inscriptions, new pets, new talent trees, new spells, new addons, new layouts, new everything!

On top of that, every five minutes someone asks “what’s a lexicon of power” followed shortly by “and where do  I find that?”.  Inscriptions are making stupid amounts of gold on my server (especially the few minors available) and people are asking a million questions about the who, where what and why of them. Oh and people complaining about the spam caused by people getting achievements.  Especially when you take 10 people to do the Leeeerroooyyy! one and everyone’s achievement hits the guild at once…

Things have been utterly crazy.  I know it’s all a little ‘old news’ now but, personally, I’m only just coming off of the new-content high!

And then they decided to hit us with Hallows End, too.  Evil buggers! More on that in another post.  On that note – expect a little pick-up in posting from now on.  Despite a rash of unfortunate circumstances and busyness combined with a little bit of writers ‘doubt’ I am slowly working myself back into the writing saddle (and dear god how many metaphors did I murder there?).

Coherency, right.  Well, this post is a quick roundup of the smaller things which won’t get a post of their own in the coming few days or so.

Patch went pretty nicely for us Europeans – most of our realms were only an hour late coming up and, although we’ve had a few outages, and a little experience of the mount and pet bug (where they ‘disappeared’) things have been otherwise relatively less failurefull than the usual major patch.

Oh, except the ding every two minutes as everyone completes an achievement.

Haircut Stuff

Matt challenged people to post their changed ‘do’s’ so here are the three I changed (I can’t bear to change Aurik – there’s no hairstyle which I think looks better on him).

Avarix

Went for a very similar look here but I wanted a floofier ponytail as I was sick of the current one I had ’sticking’ to my back.

Jhai

Jhai’s let her hair out and grown it out a bit.  Was getting a bit tired of her ’schoolgirl’ look – something I hadn’t anticipated when I made her (the look, not the geting tired of, ahem)

Dryn

At first I was going to leave Dryn as-is but I decided, screw it, he needed a change and, to be honest, I’m glad I did. Of course, 7gold+ seems a bit steep for getting someone to tie your hair back!

Achievements Stuff

Whilst I will write an extended post on my thoughts on later, I was quite pleased to have achieved one particular goal not long after the patch:

• Ambassador of the Alliance

Of course, I’m equally saddened that I didn’t quite get:

• Shop Smart, Shop Pet Smart

48 pets… and probably hours of grinding red whelps in the vain hope one would drop for me.  Of course, I was delighted to have grabbed a Firefly (something I’ve wanted for ages).  I’m hoping to grab myself a [Sinister Squashling] and a [Magical Crawdad Box] (another pet I utterly adore) to make up the last two.  Of course the latter requires several other achievements to come first, such as Master Fishing!

Hunter Stuff

Talking of pets, Dryn spent a whole lot of time hanging around the Barrens after the patch. I had been checking over my usual pet-lover-haunt to pick which of the nice, shiny new pets I wanted.  I picked out a nice Netherskate and went off to tame it.  When I was browsing, though, a familiar face cropped up.  Takk.

Now, Takk and my hunters (yes, multiple, I keep starting them and abandoning them around level 20-30…) have a long history.  My first ever WoW char, even before Aurik, was a Moo Hunter called Ouranosin.  He made it to his 21st level before I rerolled to play with my other half on the alliance side.  I had seen the raptors the game had and thought ‘hey those are funky, I wants one!’ and saw that Takk, a lovely, black skinned raptor, would make a perfect companion to my pure white bull Tauren.   It took me a looong time – Takk was a rare, hit hard and fast and I was, to put it bluntly, a noob.  The kind of noob hunter who is up there alongside their pet hitting with their weapons! /sigh

The next few hunters also aimed for Takk but all ended up getting something else (Ghost Cat, Tallstrider, Wolf) as they bypassed the level to get Takk.  Dryn has had a Tallstrider (Aoi) and then a Carrion Bird (Horizon) as his main pets as well as, briefly, his ZG tiger (Monsoon).  Sadly I had to let Monsoon go but I just wasn’t feeling close to him as a pet – cats aren’t really my thing.   I took him to STV and let him go before continuing on to Ratchet.

Cue spawn point camping, ala BRK. 3 days later and Dryn got himself a new companion and I’m glad I did.

The auto-level was the factor that spurred me to go after him now – I couldn’t have levelled him enough before with how little I play my hunter- but level 65 is a fine level of pet for a marks hunter who pretty much only grinds and I now have a companion who I’m truly happy with – and in a small homage to the kitty I’d had to let go I’ve named my new raptor Typhoon.

I also have to say that since the patch I’ve been enjoying my hunter immensely… He’d always been my ‘gather bot’ character whom I didn’t bother to gear beyond lucky drops (*coughspear*cough)  and I hadn’t really ‘enjoyed’ the hunter class so much but now I’m really feeling the love – I have a tonne of new toys and, I must say, misdirect, readiness, misdirect, is just insanely nice when you have a slightly lesser equipped tank and some t6 dps!

Look ma, I’ma big hunter now! *ahem* ( big thanks to those in BA chat who helped me spec him on patch day!).

Epic Stuff

No, not the wearing kind, the skill kind!  I’d been dithering for a while about getting Avarix an epic mount.  My shammy is my main now but he’s still fluttering about on a slow flyer.  He has no gathering skills, though, and rarely ‘goes anywhere’ as he’s done questing etc.  However, the last few days have shown how annoying it is to be stuck back on a slow flyer for questing and so, when I went to pick up the trick-or-treat candy in Shadowmoon Valley I couldn’t resist and spent the windfall I’d made from inscription to pick Avarix up a shiny new mount.

All I can say is wheee~~

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something I meant to add here but I’m too eager to begin a few other posts I have in mind to work on this one too long *ahem*.

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Well, ah huv tae admit.. ah’m fond o’ havin’ a wee critter or two aroon’ the hoose.  Especially mah wee dragon – it’s like a part o’ the family, ken?  Still, seems some types are goin’  a wee bit overboard – the headquarters here is overflowin’ wi’ a’ sorts o’ critters!

Things have been a bit quiet around here, I apologise.  Between a bad cold and some in-game activities (like running all over the world in search of pets) I’ve not had time to post.  Hopefully things should return to normal some time next week when my cold will hopefully subsided and I’ll have oh-so-much I want to talk about!

So – pets! I’m a bit mad about them – maybe not so much as some but I likes to hoard and napture any I can get my paws on.  Each of my characters has a signature pet or one which means something particular to them, or is special to them even if only by virtue of being ‘first’.  Mharai had her [Magical Crawdad Box],  Avarix has his [Scorched Stone], Jhai has her [Captured Flame] and Aurik has his [Sprite Darter Egg].

Overachieving

Any others who are pet mad will know of the new achievement in Wrath which requires you to collect 50 pets.  But what about those who like pets and maybe have a few stashed here or there and maybe want to quickly make up the difference, or those over-achieving completionists who must have every achievement available but have never really been into pets before?

I just thought I’d post some quick resources and tips for those who don’t already have vast collections, much as I did not before last week.

Two of the best places to get pet information are, undoubtedly, warcraftpets and the wowwiki page on small pets.  Both have comprehensive lists of the available pets and their relative rarity.

You best ’starter set’ will come from getting all faction starter pets – they require no rep, only the time to go and grab them from whichever hermit, crazy lady, random vendor or emo undead guy happens to ‘breed’ them.  A trip to your own or the neutral auction house means you may also be able to grab some cross-faction pets and if you have no luck with this then you might consider a post on your realm forum asking some people from the other faction to list them.

Most of the rest of the pets available, though, require rep, grinding, or quests.  Some simple ones would be the chicken quest in Westfall (available to horde with some alliance help), and going to The Deadmines for a green wing macaw.  Harder quests include the Lower Blackrock Spire Worg pup / Spiderling quests (soloable as a stealth class or those classes with some form of survivability – I did it as a resto shaman, aggroing only three groups and each time using an elemental to save my rear) and rep grinds such as Sha’tari Skyguard (which has very few dailies and only small increments from mob kills.  Getting a firefly, hyacinth macaw or any of the dragons will take some considerable grinding unless you’re lucky.

Reputation / Skills

Now is a good time to do some dual purpose grinding – Exalted with Sporeggar and Sha’tari Skyguard both give access to pets (plus tabards) and hunting whelps has such a wide level range that you can almost always be skilling up skinning.  Want that white kitten from Lil’ Timmy?  Get your fishing pole out and get some skill points whilst you wait for him to spawn!

Gaining fishing skill means you can have a shot, eventually, at catching Mr. Pinchy and you might as well do the Crocolisks in the City fishing daily if it pops up as that gives you yet another chance at a pet which you cannot get from any other source.

I’ve gained almost 200 skill points in skinning, 50-60 in fishing and gotten a faction exalted just whilst going for this achievement and I expect to get another faction soon – I’ve also seen bits of the world I’ve not seen for ages.

Cross Faction Sales

This is the time for many enterprising individuals to make a pretty penny by grabbing some pets and travelling to their local cross-faction Auction House.  Even better if you are able to get a hold of them and sell them at an even higher price on your faction auction houses to avid collecters!

Critter Collections

I know a lot of people recently have been posting their various hoards of ore or herbs and the like so here I offer my hoard: pets! I have two sets – pets for my druid and pets for my shaman – and this screenshot is now a few days old so I’ve added some engineering pets to it as well as a white kitten carrier.  This of course does not include the around 12 or so pets each character has in their bags / banks so both characters are well on their way to the achievement come patch day.  You don’t even want to see our guild bank after three of us decided to put some ’spares’ in for other guild members, hehehe.

Only a few days left until the patch, though, so you better be fast if you haven’t started your collection!  Wrath should make it a lot easier to meet the 50 pets needed, though, so if you don’t want to run all over the world doing silly quests and sillier grinds then you might want to hold off.  Happy hunting!

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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…

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