I started out writing this post as an observation on how players were interacting after 2.4, how the level of co-operation was going up a little and, hopefully, would continue to do so. Whilst I was thinking on it, though, I realised it had more than just the effects I had originally fixated on - thus I have decided to document at least a few of the changes I think 2.4 has had whether they are possibly fleeting or long lasting.

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The end of Big Bear Butt’s post from a few days back kind of struck a chord with me.

In the end, my biggest advice to you is; if you want to meet someone, you are not going to do it by solo questing. You are going to have to get out there and actually meet and greet, do what it is you are interested in, and chat with the other people who are doing the same.

It can be scary, I know.

In the past, I have been in the position of wanting to have enough friends to run the 5 man instances, wanting to be in a guild that raided the 10 mans, and wishing I knew where to go to find one.

But my mistake was that I did not enter the instances on my own. I didn’t take the initiative to go PUGing. I waited to be invited into a guild, expecting to then start doing a lot more group activity.

And the truth is, the core problem I had was that I was intimidated by doing the instance. The time I expected it to take, knowing that I was going to be committing myself to be in a single run lasting an hour and a half, with other people depending on me not to screw up, was a big looming scary wall.

His post was in regards to getting yourself a nice girl guild but was relevant for me as, although I’m in a nice, cushy, wonderful guild - their level of progression is way beyond my alts and not many of them are willing to run normal instances on a regular basis. Not five guildies at the same time anyway.

So, I got out there and did it. (Headings included for those who hate reading about instance runs - y’can just skip on past them.)

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Or, the cute and cuddly side of Horde-Alliance relations.

In mah time I’ve seen it all - Trolls tryin’ tae eat gnomes, Dwarfs kneecapping Tauren, all sorts of bad blood between the Horde an’ the Alliance but sometimes ye find yersel’ knee deep in Furbolgs wi’ an Orc at yer back and ye make do. Puts a different light on things, that sorta business.

Now, I’ve been on a pvp and a pve server and I’ve seen some pretty downright arse-hole-ish behavior between factions and, I admit, I’ve taken delight in killing off a gnome or two under my otherwise usually cuddly-care-bear Tauren guise. There is a divide in Warcraft - you pick sides and, as much as you may bemoan your own faction sometimes, they’re still a part of who your character is. Even the most ardent ‘I hate Alliance, we suck in pvp’ whiner will often be all ‘Kill the Horde’ the second they hit a battleground.

I’ve had so many bad experiences, with both my own and other factions, of people simply being gits - stealing nodes, taking quest mobs etc. That, however, is all blasted away when the nice things occur. I’m talking about a member or group of Horde or Alliance players actively helping out the ‘other side’.

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Well, them Skyguard have been tellin’ me for a while that mah riding ability is gettin’ pretty good so ah decided tae try one of the flat, ugly buggers they ride. Since we’re aw pals they even gave me a discount!

Epic flying mount! Finally! The biggest ’setback’ I felt when I changed back to my rogue wasn’t the ten levels and gearing up I had to do but the lack of an epic flying mount. I know a lot of people see it as a waste of time to get an epic flyer, not to mention a waste of gold, but I feel it’s well worth it.At the most basic level it opens up some new soloable daily quests - until now I had about 7 or 8 I could reliably do daily by myself - Two at the Skyguard Outpost in Terrokkar, two in the Blade’s Edge Mountain base, two at Ogri’la, the cooking daily and, sometimes, the pvp daily. Read more

So, as thon lassie pointed oot - the Lunar Festival ain’t all aboot dancin’ and getting yersel’ drunk. It’s aboot makin’ sure yer ancestors ken ye still remember them!

Or, in other words, rep grind!

The minute I knew there was a big cat mount in WoW I wanted it. Call me a boring sheep, whatever, I like big cats and I was for having one. I looked up how to get Darnassus rep at the time and decided the PvP route wasn’t likely (this was before the honour system changes) since I didnt pvp very much and sucked at it besides. I set out to do all of the quests I could that gave Darnassus rep but I’d gotten past the level where diminishing returns meant no rep for low level quests (again, this has since changed). I left WoW for a bit without, sadly, having ever reached that particular goal.

When I came back I had gained a bit more of an interest in PvP and quickly got myself one of the kitties-for-honour (welfare kitty?) - however I don’t like those nearly as much as the Darnassus ones (and, hey, it’s a matter of principle for me to finish now that I’ve started!). With the new diminishing returns meaning I could still get honour for the really low level quests I went back and did all of the starting ones; I put all of the runecloth I got from levelling through Hellfire / Zangarmarsh into Darnassus rep too and any morrowgrain I could make.

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I have to admit, I had never come across the term ‘altitis’ until I discovered the wow blogosphere but I’ve adopted it completely as it so well described my own habit concerning alts. I have far too many and it’s hard to stop making more like some sort of weird complusive disorder. My other half, on finding out some of my cousins also played WoW commented “Oh he probably has an alt on your server, he has one on every server!” Now, as I pointed out at the time, this was a bit of an exaggeration - I have alts spread across a few servers, yes, but mostly level 1 characters made to speak to friends whom I met after rolling my mains. I wondered to myself why I kept rolling new characters and here are the things I came up with: Read more

Well, if it isnae a spiffy new tabard for me! Looks right guid wi’ aw mah other green and purple gear, dont’cha think?

I’m not a huge tabard junkie but one I loved dearly from the day I got it on Mharai was the Purple Trophy Tabard of the Illidari. Whilst running through Shadowmoon Valley someone asked me if I wanted to join to do some group quests and I jumped right on the chance as I had quite a few left to complete. We cleared our way through them, doing the one where you have to disguise yourself as a blood elf whilst kiling the large rock giants. I mentioned to the group at the time that I wished I could get one of the tabards the blood elves wore as they looked so awesome and thought nothing more of it. Of course, when I went to hand in the reward from the other quest which goes alongside it - Battle of the Crimson Watch - I was ecstatic to find I had gotten one as a bonus reward.

Fast-forward to yesterday. Grinding Scryer rep I notice the tabards again and decided I missed having one. I hadn’t managed to get a group to do that quest on Aurik as most people on the server are well past needing it. A few tentative prods in guild later, though, I struck lucky and got a few people who’d not done it or still needed it on an alt!

They’ve seriously nerfed that battle! I remember it taking us three attempts and even when we did manage it finally we had scraped through by the skin of our teeth, having used a battle res and pots etc. Yesterday we did it with four and, although the mage died, I reckon we could have easily done it with less. Reports say people have done it with two! Ah well, I walked away with a completed quest so I guess I’m happy. Lucky sod that I am, I managed to get the green one this time. Hooray!

Would be nice if Blizz added more of these kind of tabards. Although every faction has one at exalted in Outlands (at least I think so…) not all of them look very good. I quite like the Sporeggar tabard but the Skyguard and Ogri’la tabards are a bit too oddly coloured for me.

One other tabard I picked up yesterday was the Scryers one. Finally exalted. Whoohoo!

Any excuse fer a party’s got tae be guid, right? But when ye add fancy new clothes, festival buns and a big monster tae kill that just makes it even more brilliant! Lunar festival’s a great time tae have fun wi’ yer friends but aw mine seem tae be a bit less in the partyin’ mood this year…

My first lunar festival happened to coincide with rolling Mharai. I’d missed it on Aurik due to playing during summer (when I didn’t have Uni work to complete) and I wanted in on it wholesale whilst I had the chance. Being on an RP realm meant that the outfit probably wouldn’t just lie gathering dust in the bank all year, too! Despite being level 15 I hauled my Tauren rear around the world (with help from a rather kind Paladin) and got myself some coins, bought a dress and a suit and paraded around quite happily in them whilst eating festival buns, having great fun as I did.

This year, though, I have Aurik, Avarix and Dryn. None of them need the professions items (rocket launchers, fireworks and festival suits / dress) and, being on a PvE server, they aren’t likely to see much use of any festival gear I get them. It kinda takes the fun out of the festival if you’ve ‘done it all before’ when there’s nothing much new to get.

Now you might say “Wheesht you, you’re getting something for nothing!” but I point here to the fact that Blizzard has updated most of the other yearly events so far.

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