Category Archives: screenshots

The Roleplaying Raiders. Or the Raiding Roleplayers, mayhaps.

I apologize for the lack of updates these past few days. I have a semi-valid reason, I promise:

It all started a week or two back. I think I’ve mentioned before that our guild is interesting in that it is a newer guild with quite a few people who are all in the same level range– currently mostly mid-60s (and now 70).

We have also discovered that we like instancing together, a lot. We make a very good little team.

Anyways. A week or two back somebody mentioned something about Serpentshrine Cavern. Someone else said “Yeah, it’ll be a loooong time before we get to that.” “Wait, isn’t that like… a 25-main raid?” “Yep.”

And then somebody said it. “You know… we should become a raiding/roleplaying combo guild.”

And everybody liked that idea.

So here we are, Entelechy, a guild full of roleplayers who have never done end-game before (or even hit 70 before), slowly keying up for Karazhan a year behind everybody else, and thinking we should do raids.

Crazy? Maybe. Awesome? Yes. We’re gonna try it.

Now to why I haven’t made any posts for a few days. Basically it was decided that if we’re going to be a raiding guild, we need a Ventrilo server. (We have also wanted one for a while just to mess around and have fun with each other.) So we got one set up a few days ago. Problem: Pike runs Linux. Ventrilo does not play well with Linux.

Cue a few-day-long geekathon where Pike desperately tries to get Ventrilo and Linux playing nicely. Hardly any WoW. Just a lot of Dr. Pepper and keyboard pounding inbetween work shifts.

The sad news is that the whole attempt was pretty futile; it turns out there is some weird problem going on in my computer where microphones are not registered. I was able to get Ventrilo up and running, simultaneously with WoW with no slowdown, even… but it was pretty pointless if nobody could hear me talk, even if I could hear them. And the problem was complicated enough that I think it’s beyond my meager abilities, at least for now. In the meantime, I still wanted a way to get on Vent so we could start practicing instancing while voice-chatting.

…so, I took a deep breath, sucked it up, and stuck a little Windows XP partition on my hard drive. I copied the WoW folder over, installed Vent, and… there ya go. I now have two different WoW installations, one on Linux and one on Windows. As much as it pains me to say it… I logged into Tawyn on Windows today. My initial impression was that it was pretty much exactly the same as on Linux with Wine. My second impression was that something was off somehow, which I couldn’t quite put my foot on… the mouse was moving differently, or something. But, I’m dealing with it.

I’m on Linux now and it will remain my main operating system. I’ll hop over to Windows when I’m instancing or get bored and want to dork around with the guildies for a little bit. But the rest of my WoW’ing and computer’ing in general will remain on Linux. And hopefully I can figure out the microphone problem at some point, and come back to “pure” Linux. A pop filter was my solution. It helps to eradicate popping noises which are created by the mechanical impact of quick moving air on the microphone throughout recorded speech and singing.

So that is why I haven’t been around much.

I have one more story to tell. There is a level 70 hunter in my guild who is… maybe just a little less geared than I am, and his spec is similar to mine (though not the same– there are a few notable and interesting differences). We both have the same ranged and melee weapons, except I’ve got Savagery on my axe and he doesn’t. He’s got a windserpent and I’ve got a cat.

We dueled today about… six times. And he won four of them. Rather resoundingly, too, a few times.

We had a good chat afterwards about the results and how we thought they may have come about. Because the duels really seemed to be going either way. To be completely honest he is a very good hunter and it caught me off guard. I’d never really seen him play his hunter before, usually he’s tanking for us on his warrior. So I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Anyways we compared specs and gear and strategies and had a chat. Here are my thoughts:

-Windserpents seriously do this thing where they pop up next to you and take you by surprise and throw you off, that’s what they seemed to do to me anyway. His strategy is to dump as much focus onto his Windserpent as he can so it can spam Lightning Breath, so I was on the receiving end of that, too. Oh, and the thing about the big wings… yeah. So hard to target the other guy when something’s flapping in your face. Definitely time to bring Tux to 70 (he’s halfway through 67, currently) and make him the Official PvP Pet.

– He’s a draenei and would use Gift of the Naaru on himself right when the duel began. He also has Spirit Bond. So he was regen’ing health the whole time.

– I kept trying to use my attack-power-boosting trinket without realizing I’d forgotten to equip it. Whoopsie… *shifty eyes*

– Also, he somehow has a different strategy than most hunters I go up against in PvP, but I’ve still got to figure out exactly what it is (clearly more research is required!)

Anywho, why am I telling you all this? Because if you play a draenei hunter and/or you have a windserpent these are awesome new PvP tips for you! I’m sort of jealous of the Gift of the Naaru thing. Granted, he told me a new tip about Shadowmelding at the beginning of the duel to annoy people while your pet eats them (haha) so it’s a fair tradeoff.

After the duels though, I was feeling the urge to hone my skills because he’d won more times than I’d won and it was inspiring me to PvP and get better. So I went to AV.


Hey look, Alliance on Bloodlust actually won a “New AV” game and it was the daily too… yes I know, don’t go into shock… but aside from that, I’ve got 239 honorable kills. And that’s with the omnipresent Valanos’s Longbow. I can’t wait for an upgrade. That’s what I’m saving up Honor for next, that ridiculous Crossbow. I can’t help myself. I’m in love.

Hmm. Sorry that this post sort of rambled on and on and covered at least three different subjects. That’s what happens when I put off making a post for too long. In summary: I like my guild, I like my Linux (honest!) and, when it’s not frustrating the heck out of me, I like PvP.

And two more quick things: Armory is working again! My unbuffed crit is so very very close to 20%.

And a HUGE SHOUTOUT to Moonglo for coming to visit me on Silver Hand. You guys are all great.

Storytime

Gather round, and I will tell you all a story… (I apologize for the length!)

Way back in May, when I was finishing up university, my boyfriend installed WoW.

…now there was absolutely no way I was going to let him do this without me, so the next day I installed it too.

A few hours later, there I was, looking at the character creation screen…

Me: “Ooooh, Tauren are so cute!! I must make one!!”

The Boyfriend: “Erm, I’m playing Alliance, so you’ll have to also if you want to play with me.”

Me: “Oh. Darn. Well let’s see here. Oooh, Night Elves. They had a pretty cool backstory in Warcraft III. Look, I can even make one with teal hair. My favorite color! *squee* Now for class. Hmm. Oooh, hunter. That sounds sorta like my favorite D&D class, ranger.”

*click*

And thus Tawyn was born.

I spawned as a little level one Night Elf Hunter in Teldrassil and I had no idea what was going on. I clicked on all the little tutorials that popped up, reading them carefully and trying not to forget what they said. “The little gold chalice button is the Quest Log.” “People with a big yellow exclamation point above their head have stuff for you to do.” “Right click to attack.” It was all very confusing. I couldn’t keep a lot of the aspects of this strange new game straight. I found a cute little bunny hopping around and I wanted to select it… so I right-clicked. It died. I felt horrible. The camera angle kept doing strange things, and I had no idea how to change it.

But oh, look, a guy with a big yellow exclamation point above his head! That means he has stuff for me to do, right? He’s telling me to go kill boars. Whee, I’ll go shoot them!

So I did. But then they ran towards me and I couldn’t shoot them anymore. So I whacked away furiously with my dagger, spamming the attack button because I thought that was how you did it. Then I went back triumphantly to get my very first quest reward. I chose some mail gear because it had the most armor so it was obviously the best one. Then I spent about ten minutes trying to figure out why I couldn’t equip it.

Those first few quests weren’t so bad, even though I was still clueless about the game. But around level 4 or so, I found a cave full of spiders and that was a terrible, terrible place. Those spiders killed me more times than I can count. There was another place called “Starbreeze Village” which was filled with cute teddy bears! They killed me too. Hmm.

So by level 6 I was getting pretty discouraged and I was wondering how the heck I was supposed to get to wherever my boyfriend the human warlock was because it didn’t seem to be anywhere in the vicinity. Plus, I’d found a Peacebloom which I wanted to give to him as a present because it was really pretty. So one of my sisters decided to make a level 1 character on my server and show me the way!

Off we went. We rode gryphons and boats and died at the hands of crocodiles and ogres. My sister kept stopping and telling me to talk to strange NPCs with green exclamation marks above their heads. I had no idea why I was doing this, but I did anyway.

Eventually we got to Ironforge and rode a curious little subway thing to Stormwind. I was completely lost but I followed my sister around because she seemed to know what she was doing. I eventually found my boyfriend and opened trade with him to give him my present. But…

Trial accounts cannot trade.

…there was only one thing to do. I bought the game. And gave him the Peacebloom.

So there I was, level 6 and in Stormwind. And– oooh, look that guy’s weapon is all fiery! Mental note to get that someday, whatever it is– I began questing in Goldshire. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience. Murlocs killed me mercilessly and despite the fact that I thought I was pretty handy with my dagger, spamming that attack button and all, I didn’t seem to be doing very well. I rolled my very first alt, a tauren (they’re cute darnit!) druid, and it was a lot more fun. You mean I can cast spells at people and heal? So much cooler than that silly hunter I’d made, pffft. But I kept playing my hunter because I wanted to play with the boyfriend.

Level 10 rolled around and I got this mysterious quest to go back to my hometown and get a pet. I about had a heart attack when I found out I had to go back to Teldrassil, as visions of those evil crocodiles and ogres flashed in my memory. I procrastinated on that quest for a while, because of that. But, eventually, I used my hearthstone (which I had never got around to changing yet) and went back there.

The quest involved me taming a spider, a cat, and an owl. The spider I still had a grudge against from that cave. The cat was cute but I saw cats all over Stormwind (all the hunters wanted them, for some strange reason), and I wanted to be unique. The owl made cute flappy-wing noises. I liked him.

After the quest I was informed that I could go tame a pet of my choosing to keep for as long as I wanted. I freaked out because I instinctively knew that this was a big decision and I didn’t want to screw it up. Frantically I went to my sisters for help, and they directed me to a website called Petopia. I spent about an hour there, cycling through all the pet choices, hardly understanding anything about “DPS” or “skills”. I was going purely on looks, how hard they would be to get (I wanted a raptor but they were in the Barrens, which I assumed was full of Hordies who wanted to kill me, so that was a no-go), and whether the site said they were “offensive”, “defensive”, or “well-rounded.”

I seriously considered a wolf but in the end I went with the owl. There was something endearing about having an owl flapping next to you. I went and tamed a Strigid Hunter and named him Tux.

Back to Stormwind I went, feeling a rush of relief when I managed to get back to Elwynn. I hadn’t liked it at first but it had really grown on me. Now I just had to adjust to life with a pet. I wasn’t exactly sure how it was supposed to work. Was I supposed to put him on aggressive and have him kill things for me? Hmm, nope, he died. OH MY GOSH IS HE GONE FOREVER?? *hyperventilates* Oh wait no, there’s a spell called Revive Pet. *deep breaths*

I know, I’ll shoot stuff and make it come to me and my pet and I can fight it together!

That’s what I did for a while.

…yes. I know.

I moved from Elywnn into Westfall and began questing there. At some point during this period I realized I could teach my owl “Growl”, and I also sort of gained an inkling of the idea of having him tank while I shot stuff. I could now use something called “Talent points”. I asked a couple people (non-hunters) what I should do with them and I was told to put them into the Marksmanship tree, so I did. Improved Concussive Shot, obviously, because a chance at stunning someone sounded about ten times more exciting than increased crit. I thought I was a pretty darn good hunter, despite the fact
that, ya know, I was dying all the time. Boldly I ventured into Deadmines with my pet on aggressive. This was a dungeon afterall. More damage was good, right? Having my pet on aggressive killing stuff was good, right?

The people at my party started yelling at me and telling me to control my pet. I didn’t get it. How was I supposed to control my pet? What did they mean?

At some point they told me trap a mob. I laid down an Immolation Trap and smugly pulled the mob in. I had an ice trap too but I didn’t like it. It didn’t do any damage. Pfft. What kinda lame trap is that, not doing any damage?

We killed VanCleef somehow. The people in my party weren’t very happy because apparently someone had ninja’d a lot of the loot throughout the dungeon. I got angry too. Darn those ninjas! Good thing I somehow got a lot of great stuff though. My bags were full of them. Silly people should know to click Need if they want stuff.

And so I continued my questing, fancying myself as a nice little hunter who’d had some bad luck. I still wasn’t a big fan of the class and I was rolling non-hunter alts all the time, but Tawyn was the highest level so she was the most interesting, so she got the most playtime.

One day I was attacking something and somehow aggro’d something else as well. It ran towards me, with Tux still busy on the first mob. Now I don’t know how or why this idea popped into my head, because it had never ever occurred to me before… but for some reason I hit my never-used Freezing Trap button.

Pop!

I had one mob trapped and out of my way while I took care of the other one. Then I went back and finished the trapped mob.

Afterwards, I blinked. Whoa.

…what a neat trick I’d just discovered! I tried it again. It worked, again. Wow! How fun!

I wondered if hunters had any other little tricks like that.

After I logged off WoW I hit up WoW Wiki and Google, searching for information and help on the hunter class. The first two sites I stumbled across were called The Hunter’s Mark and Big Red Kitty. The Hunter’s Mark had a bunch of stuff on trapping which I read voraciously. Big Red Kitty was filled with math and numbers and strange new phrases I had never heard of before, like “Steady Shot” and “Kill Command”. But it all seemed very important so I bookmarked it.

I hit my 30s and began questing in Desolace. I haven’t forgotten this: me, my boyfriend, and the guy who’d introduced us to WoW playing on an alt, all of us questing in Desolace. At some point we pulled a lot more mobs than we wanted to. And I, ever in love with my little trick, trapped a mob while we took out the others.

The friend said in party chat, “Great use of your traps Tawyn… you’ll make a great hunter.”

Wait… I would?

But everybody was always yelling at me! I was always dying! And yet… I really had the potential to be a good hunter? Great, even?

And that settled it.

I went back to BRK and read the entire thing. Everything. First I read the posts he had linked on his sidebar. Then I went back to his very first post and read the whole blog “cover-to-cover”. I read all the comments. Took a few days. I tried to internalize as much as I could. I didn’t understand a lot of it but I read it anyway. I went to The Hunter’s Mark, too, and read as much of it as I could and watched the movies that had been posted. Then I started clicking on links and on the names of the commenters. More blogs to read! I never said anything, I just lurked and read.

Somehow, between all that reading and learning and the playing and practicing, something clicked.

Suddenly I couldn’t play my non-hunter alts anymore. They were awkward. They didn’t have that special, unique quality that my hunter did. They weren’t me. I remember I rolled a troll warrior on some friends’ server with the express purpose of making her my “main alt.” I got to level 7 or 8 or so and had to stop, I just wasn’t having fun or enjoying myself at all. The next day I went back to that server and rolled a hunter. Today she’s my second-highest level character.

More leveling, more questing. More… erm… very interesting adventures as you can see from the above screenshot. And slowly I incorporated what I had been learning from various blogs into my gameplay. I was using my traps. I was teaching my pet the right skills. I had my pet under control. I was no longer a hindrance in groups, but a help. I stayed Marksman until level 50 because I was comfortable with it; but here is where the Grand Respec Phase came and I messed around with specs for a while before settling on, whaddaya know, 41/20/0. I hit 58 and Outlands. Things kept improving for me. I began topping charts in battlegrounds. I began topping charts in instances. People began specifically asking me to instance with them– apparently I’ve improved a little since Deadmines.

Most importantly, I discovered something that I could practice and take pride in. It might sound a little silly to a lot of people if I were to compare playing my class in World of Warcraft, to honing one’s skills in a sport or art form. But that’s sort of what it became to me. And it taught me that no matter how horrible you are at something– a little coaching and a little practice can work wonders.

And now…?

I am a hunter.

And as of today, I am level 70.

Thanks, WoW bloggers. I couldn’t have done it without you guys. (Well, I could have, but… it wouldn’t have been a pretty sight. /twitch) I can only hope that my own little site will be as helpful to some other inquisitive newbie someday.

It's that time of the level-bracket again.

I’ve sort of been taken a break from leveling this whole past week. There were two main reasons for this. The first one is that The Boyfriend (hmm, should I call him Mr. Pike? Heehee) has been pretty busy, so he got about a level behind me. We try to stay equal in level, especially as we’re approaching 70, so I told him I would wait to level until he’d caught up.

The second reason is that I decided it would be fun to focus on PvP for a while. The reasons for this include wanting to stockpile honor and marks now so I have a jump on the level 70 PvP gear (I learned the hard way yesterday that going into the level 70 bracket AV with level 68 gear is… not a pleasant experience)… and the fact that I just plain like battlegrounds. I think my PvP skill is improving, too… I will still refrain from calling myself very good at PvP, but it felt good to see this:


I am usually near the top of the “Damage Done” charts, but I am very rarely actually first, so it was a nice surprise to see this. I’ve also noticed that my kiting skills have improved lately, and I’ve discovered a lot of little things about playing hunters in PvP that I should have known before, but didn’t. For example: Rogues love Serpent Sting. …actually, they really hate it. *cough* Because they can’t stealth if they’ve got it. I never knew this before! Fantastic. Oh, and The Beast Within handily works as, effectively, a second trinket. I didn’t know this either. Oh the fun I’ve had since I found this out. Can’t regain distance because of a warrior’s Hamstring or a rogue’s Crippling Poison? Pop The Beast Within and get back to business.

Speaking of which, I’ve noticed lately that there’s sort of been a complete turnaround for me in terms of classes that I do well against and classes that I don’t do well against. In my earlier levels, warriors and rogues were the bane of my existence. These days, I do quite well against them. Meanwhile, warlocks, who I was always pretty good at taking out before, have suddenly become near-invincible. I’m not sure if it has to do with the talents of our respective classes, or if it’s just a change in my playstyle, or maybe both. But it’s quite interesting.

Anyways, while I’ve had a lot of fun in the battlegrounds this week, I have been bitten by the dreaded Level 70 Bug, so I’ve started up my questing again. The newly-christened Mr. Pike is now at level 68 with me and we want to spend the weekend leveling. We’ll see how far we get!

My First Screenshot

Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their input on my question about WordPress. When it comes down to it, I don’t really have any big plans for this blog (yet), and a custom domain name would be nice but it’s definitely not a top priority right now. This would suggest that sticking to Blogger would be just fine, but I am curious about the types of customization that WordPress seems to offer. So I think I will probably end up making a WordPress blog and messing around with it for a while, and then deciding whether to make the switch or not. Either way, I will keep you all posted.

However, this post is about something entirely different, namely, the first screenshot that I ever took in WoW:


That, my friends, is Tawyn Q. Huntard, Esq.

I don’t have Hunter’s Mark on my action bars anywhere because I figured I’d run out of room to put new spells, and Hunter’s Mark didn’t sound very exciting to me anyway.

Tux is there, yes, which is a wonder because I had no food for him when I first tamed him and now that I look back on it I’m lucky I managed to get some food in time. You will notice he does not know Growl. I had no idea that move existed; my general strategy at this point was shoot stuff and make it come to me so my pet and I could melee it together. Yes… it’s sad, but true.

The raid icon is above my head because I’d been grouping with a friend who wanted to show me around and they started messing around and putting those icons above my head, which was freaking me out because I had no idea what they were or what they did.

I am in Menethil because I was whisked away to Stormwind at the wee level of 6, but at level 10 I got the quest to tame my first pet and I had to return to Teldrassil. I used my hearth to get back (since I’d forgotten to set it to something in the human lands), but it was on the trek back with my new pet that I forgot all about the flight paths I had collected last time and I needessly walked basically the entire way, dying multiple times.

The reason I took this screenshot was because I found it amusing that the Menethil Sentry was partially submerged in the ground. Ironic that now I see things like that all over the place in Outlands… heehee =P

So yeah. At least I had Aspect of the Hawk on…

I’d like to think Tux and I are doing a lot better these days.

You readers, if you are up to it, are hearby dared to post or link to the newbie-est screenshot of yourself that you can find!

(Oh, and ding 68)

Desktops & Blogs

This is a screenshot I took today of my current computer desktop:


The wallpaper was made by the extraordinarily talented artists over at The Bronze Kettle, which is a very good WoW blog that I would recommend looking into if you haven’t already.

Speaking of blogs, I’ve finally updated my sidebar’s blogroll; in fact, thanks to Google Reader and some code, it should actually self-update now every time I find a new blog to read. (Thanks to Mania for originally pointing out that you could do this!)

My blogroll has gotten very big in such a short amount of time, if it gets much bigger I might have to make a dedicated “page” for it. But I like having all the links on the blog itself.

Ding 63 and I got my [Survivalist’s Pike]! It even has my nickname in it, so you know it’s gotta be a good weapon. =P

You know you're a Beast Mastery Hunter when…

…you’re fourth in the healing charts at the end of an AV match:


Ahead of druids, pallies, shammies and priests. I found it rather amusing, but I guess that’s what comes from spamming the Mend Pet button!

This particular AV match was a very good one, too. Highlights included a rogue and I taking on and successfully capturing Frostwolf Graveyard by ourselves (thanks to sap, some cleverly placed traps, and Tux amazingly managing to tank the 61 elite for a very long time), a very close race from both factions to killing the final boss, and my personal favorite part, ding’ing 61 mid-game in the 51-60 bracket (you’ll notice my level in the screenshot, heehee).

It’s moments like those when I really love battlegrounds.

I was asked a couple questions regarding Linux (and my desktop wallpaper too, haha) and I will be addressing those in my next post. Thank you giving me the questions and the opportunity to answer them, and do feel free to keep asking them!

Happy Hallow-Ding!


Happy Halloween from Tawyn (aka Pike) and her little menagerie of pets. I hope you all enjoy yourselves, whatever you’re doing.

Oh, and in other news:


DING 60!

The pre-BC big one!

Ten more levels to go, but I’m really in no rush to get there. I really enjoy the whole process of questing and leveling up and exploring, and I don’t want to just rush through Outlands to the finish line. Although with nearly 500,000 XP to go until level 61, I don’t know how fast I could “rush through” anyway… heehee.

If you haven’t noticed, I enjoy posting a lot of screenshots. I think they make things more interesting. And I have fun posting them, so it works out!

Random Ramblings!

So my Sitemeter tells me that I’ve had like 100 new visitors just in the past few hours thanks to a link on Big Red Kitty. To coin a term, I have been BRK’d. Wow! Thanks BRK! And welcome to any new visitors. Please feel free to browse around my little blog, and pull up a chair and make yourself comfortable if you so desire. *passes out cookies and tea for the readers, and a variety of pet foods for their pets*.

(Edit: And a link on Mania’s Arcania too? Wow, thank you!! I might just have to make another “shout-out” post sometime soon.)

Now then, Outlands:


This screenshot was taken shortly before heading through the Dark Portal to get to Outlands. Yes, I’ve had my hearth set to Shatt since level 50 or so, but there was no way I was going to miss out on going through the portal.

The irony is that the screenshot is already “outdated”, so to speak, since in the short time between then and now I have already managed to replace two pieces of gear as well as my ranged weapon, all with stuff that is better than my old-world gear to a ridiculous degree. I already love Outlands though– it’s fun, it’s challenging (the “yellow” mobs are more like “orange” mobs, and I love that challenge), and of course, there’s all the new gear!

So here I am, on the fast-track to level 60 (ooh, remind me to do more farming… need epic mount cash) and enjoying every bit of it.

Other bits of interest: My teal kitty has been christened Locke. This name has a double meaning for me; firstly, John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher, just like Thomas Hobbes… so there is an in-joke there, a nod to both the Calvin & Hobbes comic and to BRK. Secondly, Locke Cole is a character from the Super Nintendo game Final Fantasy VI, which is one of my favorite video games. Locke the kitty and Tux the owl have been taking turns playing in Outlands with me, all the while being lavished with roasted quail.

Also, I have decided that I’d like to improve upon my PvP skills. I’ve been doing a lot of battlegrounds recently (since once I hit a level ending in 8 or 9 I hightail it over to the battlemasters… you might say I have a bit of an addiction) and while I would call my self an “okay” PvPer and I tend to be towards the top of the damage charts at the end, I still am not a “good” PvPer. A lot of times in PvP I’ll get caught of guard or people will sneak up on me, and then I seem to spend the duration of that duel trying to get back to range and doing very little non-pet damage. It’s definitely time to practice my technique here.

I do have an interesting PvP story to share. I was in Alterac Valley the other day, and was somewhere out in the middle of nowhere when I ran across a lone orc warrior. He was level 51, and I was level 59. Now I know it’s battlegrounds, I know player-vs-player combat is the whole point here… but I couldn’t bring myself to attack him. Not with eight levels separating us. Besides, since we were both out in the middle of nowhere I figured he must have been doing a quest or something. So I hopped on my mount and rode right past him. Not long after this I paused to catch my bearings and decide where I wanted to go. And who should come jumping on me but that level 51 warrior! We fought, and obviously Tux and I triumphed. But I have to say that little incident left me admiring the orc player’s courage and mindset. He knew what PvP was all about. He was willing to try taking on a player that was eight levels higher than him. Whereas I, well, I love a good battlegrounds game but I’m really just a carebear at heart. It was an interesting juxtaposition of two different playstyles and I /salute that orc warrior, wherever he is.

Alrighty, enough pseudo-philosophical rambling. Back to Outlands!

Big Teal Kitty


That, my friends, is Rak’Shiri, the oh-so-elusive Winterspring spawn that is the prized catch of Alliance hunters everywhere (since hordies can summon the same type of cat for a quest, so they don’t have to go hunting for him. =P) He has a sort of teal-tint to him, and that is one of the reasons why I picked him over other cats… because teal has long been my favorite color. This also explains my character’s hair color… but I digress!

My wait for him actually wasn’t that bad. I camped out at Frostsaber Rock for a couple hours last night, with no luck, but a lot of guildies were on at the time chatting up a storm so I at least wasn’t lonely. Then, this morning, at roughly 4:30 am server time (don’t worry, I work the early morning shift, so I’m used to it… and I’m an hour ahead of my server anyway) I logged on again to see if he was there. I didn’t see him at first, but I did manage to catch him out of the corner of my eye when I was on my way out…

Taming him was certainly an adventure; I was pet-less, obviously, and there were mobs everywhere. After several false starts and mashings of the Feign Death button (I maintain my stance that Feign Death is a girl’s best friend), I laid down a freezing trap and began the taming process. Not long into this, I was jumped by a stealthed mob. Helplessly I watched my HP dwindle but then, in the nick of time, my new kitty was tamed and helping me fight the offender. Unfortunately this meant I hadn’t had time to feed him or teach him growl, so he wasn’t a lot of help, especially since more and more mobs kept showing up. We fought valiantly for a while, but eventually I hit the bucket. I didn’t mind though, because I now had my lovely Big Teal Kitty.

(Adding to the overall amusement of the above story is that I was wearing the Leper Gnome costume the whole time.)

It will take a few levels to get my new kitty up to speed, I think, but it’ll be fun. And obviously I will never, ever fully give up Tux. But it’s about time I had another pet to play with… just in time for Outlands, too, since I also hit 58 last night. He does need a good name, though. It was my boyfriend who ironically came up with the idea of naming him after a philosopher a la Hobbes (the irony being that as far as I am aware, he has never read BRK), so I’ll be thinking!

Oh, and thank you all for the suggestions on blog readers. I will be looking into them this weekend.