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Iron Man: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (5/5)

My dear, sweet, precious Moragolden – you were my entry into the Iron Man challenge. But unfortunately, this is the end of an era.

Iron Man end of an era

Damn it Tarenar, you’re supposed to help me!

Mora died at the tender level of 42 in Eastern Plaguelands – which, of course, marks the end of her course in the Iron Man Challenge. It does not, however, mark her end completely.

You see, the Iron Man Challenge suggests that you delete your character and start over when you die. However, I’ve grown attached to Mora, created her own character and story. I can’t give up on her now. So, she’s going to be something a little different. Something I’ve nicknamed a “Tin Man”.

Because I’ve had trouble staying motivated with leveling my alts recently, I realized that making leveling one of my characters even harder is not the way to make me stay motivated. To that end, the Tin Man is basically the Iron Man with two changed rules:

  1.  The Tin Man is allowed to die. This is, of course, the biggest break away from the Iron Man, but I feel that leveling a character with heavy restrictions to combat and healing abilities, as well as the gear they can wear, is enough of a challenge in and of itself – particularly with Warlords content. The second rule helps lessen the possibility of death a little more”
  2. The Tin Man is allowed to choose a class specialization, but not any talents, glyphs, etc. The biggest reason for me making this rule was that I want to keep playing Mora in Legion, but to do so, I’d have to do the Artifact weapons quest line, and for that I need her to have a specialization. Mostly, Druid specialization gives you a larger resource pool and a few more abilities – nothing overly game changing, and I am still restricting use of talents and glyphs.

These rules should make leveling somewhat of a challenge, but not so much so that it becomes frustrating or discouraging. Mora is currently specced Guardian and sitting at level 44, almost done in Eastern Plaguelands. I’ll keep you posted from time to time about my Tin Man’s progress! 🙂

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It’s Alive!!

I haven’t updated this blog in over a year, and I apologize for that. The reason that I made this blog was so that, in addition to having a place to talk about World of Warcraft and my characters, I would have a project that I would keep relatively regularly updating, as a practice in self-discipline. I seem to have…strayed from that original goal.

There are a couple of reasons as to why I haven’t updated in 12 months. First, as a university student, my classes and extra-curriculars during the school year take up 300% of my time, and I don’t even get time to play, much less time to write about playing. Second, as I just said, I haven’t been online a whole lot, for two reasons: I just don’t have time most days, and that leveling my alts has drained my desire to play, particularly in Warlords content. Third, I have also started playing Wildstar when it went F2P, which I will attempt to make the occasional post about on this blog. I haven’t gotten very far in the game, but I am thoroughly enjoying it thus far.

I’m planning on making two more posts between today and tomorrow, which will be actual blog posts. Just keep in mind: if I don’t update for a long time, and there will be times where I don’t, it just means that my daily life is really hectic and I have no time to play and/or update. Thank you so much to everyone who’ve read or followed this blog, and I promise to try my best to do more on here in the coming months.

-Katherine

A Brand New You – Part 3!
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A Brand New You – Part 3!

Well, this was supposed to be out last Thursday, but I ran out of time to finish on Thursday, then my computer started acting up of Friday, and I couldn’t get it to work again until late on Saturday, and then I spent most of Sunday getting everything put back on it. Oh well – better late than never!

Anyways – now that Warlords is live, Blood Elf Models are on the way, and MMO-Champion has posted some screenshots of updates to several models, I guess it’s time for me to give a second opinion of these models. Buckle your seatbelts; you’re in for a long ride, readers.

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Happy (Late!) Winter Veil!

So according to my brain, “tomorrow or the 26th” means “a month from now”. I did honestly want to get this out sooner, but between scheduling and my unparalleled ability to get distracted by everything, I just… didn’t. Oops.

In any case, I had an idea for Winter Veil this year, which I started back in July. All my girls would do their usual questing and leveling, but as they did so, they would gather presents – stuff like crafting recipes or BoE green drops – and give each other gifts in December. Of course, Hordies couldn’t send stuff to the Alliance, and vice versa, but other than that, everyone got something from someone. The fun part was that I wrapped stuff as I got it, so by the time Winter Veil rolled around, I couldn’t remember what was in every box. I was opening gifts, too!

On with the Christmas-morning-opening-presents-photos!

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Thoughts on Warlords… and an Explaination
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Thoughts on Warlords… and an Explaination

Wow… two months and ten days since my last post.

Honestly, I didn’t plan on being away – but I kind of knew when I started this blog that my updates would start diligent and regular, but would eventually become sporadic as all hell. I didn’t realize it would be this quick, though.

School. School got in the way. Midterms in the middle and end of October, final projects and papers in November, and 3 finals in the first two weeks of December, and now I’m taking a bit of time to breath, and having Christmas with the family tomorrow. From my last post until Warlords launch, I didn’t play any WoW, so that explains why I had nothing to post. The rest was mostly just taking my time through new content and getting a chance to go through some old stuff as well. Be prepared, this post will be a big one, to make up for the time I’ve lost. 🙂

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Iron Man: Progress has been made! (4/10)

Starting now, my Iron Man posts will be out of 10, as there is no possible way I’d get Mora to max before Warlords hits.

In any case, with school starting, I haven’t had as much time to play, but I spend most of my weekends in Azeroth. Finally, my dear, sweet, precious Moragolden dinged 40 last Friday.

Iron Man 40

I spent about 10 levels in a given zone up until 30 – from 30 to 40, I went through Arathi, Hinterlands, and about half of Western Plaguelands. Then again, I am doing most quests at green difficulty, so it’s not really that surprising that it took me a while.

Northern Lordaeron may be my favourite area to quest in post-Cata. Between Hillsbrad, Arathi, Hinterlands, Ghostlands, both Plaguelands, and Eversong, I could take every Hordie of mine through here and never get bored. In fact, I’ve leveled 5 characters through Hinterlands, and I know that I’ll be bringing at least 2 more through there later.

I’d like to get Mora up to 50 by the time Warlords hits – you know, a nice halfway checkpoint – and then focus on leveling my other girls and experiencing new content, rather than worry about leveling her to max. Now that 6.0.2 is up, I’m going to be spending a lot of time in the Barbershop, and a lot of time getting Deathdaisy through the content from this patch. Unfortunately, that means for the next few days, Mora is going to have to take a back seat.

In any case, congrats Mora for leveling, and I hope everyone has fun in 6.0.2!

-Katherine

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Surreal Feeling

For the unaware, Growing up in Azeroth held a contest about 2 weeks ago, with 2 of the prizes being beta keys, and the other 2 being water colour paintings of a character of your choice. So…. I got 4th place, getting me a portrait of Deathdaisy.

WoW Nelf DK commission

Made to player’s specifications 🙂

I just… I’m kind of overwhelmed right now; there is someone, another human being, that took time out of their life to create art – of one of my characters. I didn’t win first or second in the contest, but honestly? I don’t care. I think I actually prefer this. It’s an absolutely gorgeous portrait of her, and it the pose and expression and armour and weapon and GUH. I LOVE. ♥♥♥♥♥♥

So thank you so much, Fussypants, for this incredibly fun contest, and this amazing prize! JSYK, I’m always up for art trades in the future ;)!

-Katherine

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A Brand New You – Part 2

Okay – I said I wasn’t going to, but I caved and got the rest of my girls up to level 10 so I could see their new models. There’s only three, so this is gonna be a relatively short post.

First up: Nixi

Nixi pre-WoD Nixi WoWhead post WoD

I love the new Gnome female model – I know that many don’t because of the wide eyes, but I think she’s adorable. The detail on the hands is wonderful, and I love that her robes actually fit her smaller frame now. The little smattering of freckles is perfect, and even though the expression isn’t identical to her old model, I still like it and think it suits her. I don’t know what is going on with her feet – I know several new models (female Night Elf, female Orc, MALE HUMAN) have the same problem, but … really? Blizz, is it really that hard to not  make her shoes go between her toes? The other slight problem is the hair – while from the front and side it looks great, the back is still kind of low poly – I know that Gnomes were some of the first finished models, but couldn’t that have gotten cleaned up by now?

2nd is my 4th Night Elf, Sylphera:

Sylphera pre-WoD Sylphera WoWhead post WoD

…What

Okay, setting aside that she doesn’t even look like the same character in the new model, I will state for the upteenth time that I love the new Night Elf female model. But seriously, her hair: it’s not even close to the same colour (her old hair was teal), the hairstyle doesn’t look the same at all – it just looks kind of limp and dead. Her expression is far to somber, what is going on with WoWhead and giving Night Elves blue eyes, and once again, we’re playing the Mystery of the Missing Markings. Honestly, I thought Sylphera was going to be the closest of these three to her original model, and she is the one that I’m the most disappointed with.

Lastly is my “Mini-me”, Katheri:

Katheri pre WoD Katheri WoWhead post WoD

I. Adore. This. Model.

I absolutely love the new Human female model (as opposed to the male, which is just… *shudders*). Her body looks much better – even though you can’t really see it with the robe – and like Nixi, her robes actually fit her frame now. Now, when I say “mini-me”, I mean she is meant to be me in the game – and this is absolutely perfect. The pale skin and slightly lighter hair are absolute perfection. I love the messiness of her hair, and that it’s a little less poofy than it was before. Her expression is gorgeous, just gorgeous. I am so happy with how she turned out.

Well, that’s all for now, folks. I am eagerly looking forward to 6.0 – and we all know that the first day will be spent taking hundreds of screenshots of my girls with their lovely new bodies, new faces, new hair, and new personalities.

– Katherine

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A Brand New You!

With Warlords of Draenor getting ever nearer, I decided to hop on the bandwagon of many a WoW blogger: viewing their characters in their new models.

For many of my girls, this was like them getting dolled up for a night out: looking much better than they usually try to be, but still recognizable as them. Others… well, let’s just say it’s more akin to getting plastic surgery done while I was out XD.

First up, here’s my main, Deathdaisy:

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Iron Man: Oh Hillsbrad, my Hillsbrad (3/9)

It’s official: I have now raised an Iron Man to 1/3 of the current maximum levels. Hurrah!

Iron Man 30

You know, for all my love for both Tauren and Trolls, I… just have no love for the Barrens. I cannot stand leveling there. I’m not sure what it is, but both zones just bore me. Also, I’ve died several times doing Counterattack! , so I figured it probably wasn’t a good idea to bring a character who isn’t allowed to die out there. 🙂

And somehow, for how much I just dislike the Barrens, I adore Hillsbrad – which is weird, since a lot of people hate it post-Cata. Reasons for said hatred include:

  • Diseased bears with spider eggs growing on them
  • The general horrors of the Sludge Fields (full info on it here)
  • The destruction of Southshore
  • The general Forsaken-overtaking of the zone

among others, of course. Me? I love this zone, partly because it’s kind of disturbing. That’s the same reason why I like questing in Silithus: I hate any bugs in real life, but the big ones in game are fun to slaughter. There are a few things about this zone that I want to point out to everyone, and point you towards Hillsbrad for adventuring.

  1. Welcome to the Machine – Aside from being an awesome Pink Floyd reference, this quest is one of the best Blizzard has put in. You get to be the quest giver and dispense quests to various player “stereotypes”: Dumass, the unskilled new player; Orkus, the well-geared, end-content player who’s coming back to see the changes that the Cataclysm brought; and Johnny Awesome, the alt leveling with the aid of heirlooms and the sparkle pony Celestial Steed. The characters are hilarious, and the best part is, the person you got the quest from to dispense quests then sends you to clean up after them. A day in the life of a hero in Azeroth.
  2. Just. The text for this quest. The quest text, the progress text, the item flavour text, the turn in text, one of the rewards, everything. Perfection.
  3. Heroes of the Horde!  – Just… what a quest. What started out as helping a truly moronic orc not drown turned into one of the most emotional quests in the level 1-60 range. You truly are a hero of the Horde. RIP Kingslayer Orkus of <Red Like My Rage>. He also shows up riding Kasha when your character is dead, which is a very touching detail. You hit the nail on the head with this one, Blizz.
  4. And, for everyone who’s against the Forsaken’s efforts in Hillsbrad, there’s this one for you: Matters of Loyalty. Drek’Thar himself, blind and in a wheelchair, coming out to berate your character for their misdeeds, and finishing it with “Yes… I have done terrible things, but nothing could ever be as terrible as lending aid to the Forsaken.” Honestly everything that I’ve ever wanted from the Frostwolf’s resident shaman and elder.

Aside from all this, Hillsbrad is a beautiful zone, and has some incredible quests in it. I urge everyone to give it a second chance: you may just enjoy it in the end.

-Katherine