Tag Archives: important

By the Way! I’m Back. Sort of.

It’s occurred to me that I’ve announced this pretty much everywhere BUT here, so I thought I’d announce this here in case you’ve missed it and are interested…

*clears throat*

I have a new video game oriented blog, called The Android’s Closet. (Yes, it’s like my fourth or fifth blog. I know, I know.) This is not WoW-centric (or any other game -centric) by any means, but unless I make a truly serious return to WoW in the future, any future WoW rambles will probably be over there and not over here.

Oh, and! The blog is being co-written by me and one Mister Adequate, aka “The New Boy” (long and lovely story, that! But I digress), so be sure to say hello to him if you do decide to swing by!

Anyways, that’s about it! You’re welcome to follow me over there if you’d like to continue watching me filibuster at length about various games– I’d love to see you! If not, thank you for being here and reading and following along with my WoW adventures for all these years. I can’t say whether or not this particular blog will return, but my memories of both the game and this blog are fond ones and won’t be forgotten.

[insert obligatory “Aliens” reference about hypersleep here]

Every New Beginning…

…comes from some other beginning’s end. ( – Seneca. Or Semisonic. Whichever…)

The account has expired, and I’m done with World of Warcraft for the foreseeable future. Having done everything I needed to do on my “mains” last night, I was actually in the process of going around and double-checking my lesser-played alts today for any rogue items in their mailboxes when I was kicked off of the server.

So wait, you’re coming back, right? When?

I’ve hesitated to say for certain one way or another because I don’t want to make any guarantees. At best I want to give myself a few months to get things sorted out. If needs be I’ll wait until Cataclysm and see how things are looking then. Let’s just give it the ol’ Blizzard “Soon“™

What about the blog?

As I said, I will keep blogging. Probably in more than one place, because apparently I’m an addict like that (or a masochist, take your pick.)

I’ve thought about it for a bit and although I initially figured I’d just keep blogging here, I think I’d rather leave Aspect of the Hare “as is”. That way, people who want to continue linking to me for guides and the like can do so without worrying about people having to wade through non-WoW stuff. Plus, if/when I come back, I can just jump right back in to a ready-to-go WoW-themed blog.

What I’m probably going to do is set up a couple of subdomains here and then when they’re all set I’ll make another post linking you all to them. Gimme a couple days and I’ll get back to you!

Also, if you have a LiveJournal account and want to read my somewhat less-structured and more non-sequitor rambles I don’t mind if you friend me over there, either.

Commissions?

Will continue, send ’em my way! I’d like to think the fabled “Sitemeter Avatar Contest” will continue in some fashion also, though we’ll have to wait and see how things go once I get my “New Blog” all set up.

And now, roll credits:

Thank you…

…to BRK and Lassirra, without whom I would never have started blogging. Your blogs were inspirations that got me excited about the WoW-o-sphere and taught me how to play a hunter in the first place.

…to the WoW Twitterati for giving me one epic chatroom to rant, laugh, cry, and joke in, to bounce ideas off of, and inspire me to do crazy things like draw pictures or write books. I’ll still be around, don’t worry.

…to my guild, Order of the Rose, for being made of at least ten types of awesome. For dragging me around to their alt runs when I was an undergeared nub and then tossing me head first into their 25mans and hard modes, for passing gear and weapons to me, and for pulling together special raids just for me so I could get my Champion of the Frozen Wastes title– on not one, but two characters. For not just “letting” me raid as Beast Mastery, but for flat-out encouraging and challenging me to do so. Every outcast, non-flavor-of-the-month player should be so lucky.

…to my guild in Burning Crusade, the now-defunct but never-forgotten Entelechy. This is going to sound dorky and cheesy to the Nth Degree, but ya know what, I’m gonna say it anyway: you guys are some of the best friends I’ve ever had. I love that a good number of us have kept in touch outside of the game, via our forum or our nightly AIM chats, which is awesome because I know a lot of us have quit playing. I think back to the best memories I have of this game– Karazhan, countless Heroic Mech runs, opening all the graves in Zul’Farrak when we were all level 45, marching in on the Caelestis Templares’ cathedral twenty-strong– and I wasn’t doing it alone, but with you guys. May there always be Five Seconds to Evocate on Curator and may “Thundercats, Ho!” always ring through the hall before Shade of Aran.

…to Blizzard, for, well, making the game to begin with. I’ve been a BlizzHead since StarCraft stole my heart away in 1999, and it’s you guys and Nintendo more than anybody that have instilled a love of gaming in my soul. Being a citizen of Azeroth these past three years has been an honor and privilege. You guys are masters of making living, breathing worlds and characters. I was trying to emulate that solid real-ness when I was writing my book and inventing my own fictional world and characters, and if I was even half as successful as you with it, then I think I’m good. And if my book ever ends up published and with even a modicum of success then I’ll owe you a grateful hat tip.

…and finally, to my readers, for being the best readers that any blogger could ever hope for. It’s been almost three years of blogging and I can count the number of truly negative comments that I’ve received on one hand. And it’s because you guys are all amazing and mature and here to contribute to this little community. I have read every single comment ever posted here– every single one– and I wish I could go through and name names one by one and thank you all individually but it would take too long. Suffice to say if you have ever commented here I consider you a friend. Thank you for making me a part of your lives. I really didn’t deserve it.

If you’re going to follow me along to the rest of my blogging adventures, then I very much look forward to seeing you there. If not, it’s been a pleasure and I can only hope that something I said at some point made you smile or made you think. And I hope to see you again should I return.

Before I logged off of my characters last night, I tried to make sure I logged off appropriately. Tawbree, for example, is astride her new Epic Fiery Horse cause I did in fact manage to hit level 40. Tamaryn is in tree form, dancing away, with both trinkets activated and all of her HoTs ticking on herself.

And Tawyn pulled out Tux, her very first pet ever, and went on a little road trip. She went to Teldrassil, where it all began; she went to Azshara and explored the entire thing– including even more things I’d never seen before!– and then… then, she went home.

Bestial Wrath’d right before I logged out. That way she’ll be Bestial Wrath’d out there in Pixel-Land until I come back, and if I don’t come back, she’ll be Bestial Wrath’d until the servers go down.

I thought it was a nice touch.

Long past were the days when Medivh’s tower was much of a threat and adventurers flocked to the pass to donate their skills to the cause, but the few Violet Eye delegates that were holding out there did see the occasional visitor.

Archmage Alturus was on a first name basis with a few of these visitors, the night elf Tawyn being one of them.

“Back again, are you?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“Ayep,” Tawyn replied tersely as she dismounted.

“What keeps drawing you here, really?” The Archmage was genuinely curious. “The time is past that we really needed you…”

Tawyn blinked. He may as well have asked her why fish swam and why birds flew. “Maybe it’s the ley lines under the place. I dunno. You don’t ask the gulls why they return to the sea.” She shrugged.

“Fair enough,” the mage replied. “And we could always use good scouts, I suppose. You never know if something new might pop up in there.”

“Good. I’m goin’ in.”

“Alone?”

“I’m never alone.”

It was then that Archmage Alturus saw the big gray owl with yellow eyes perched nearby in the shadows. As if in response, he took wing now and alighted on Tawyn’s shoulder as she opened the front gate. She stood there a moment, gazing inside, her eyes clouded a bit as if distracted. “We aren’t getting any younger I suppose, are we, Tux?” she murmured.

Tux hooted something in response and then the hunter and her owl went inside.

The WoW Bucket List, or, Do Not Stand At My Blog And Weep

Alright guys, here’s the deal.

My World of Warcraft account expires in a week. And unless I’m hit with a non-paladin Divine Intervention between now and then, I’m… not resubscribing, probably for a while. I hate to use the term “quitting” so I’m using the term “on hiatus” instead. (Plus, it sounds better if you sing it to the tune of “Rock Me Amadeus”.)

So, lemme clear up some confusion that people may have. This isn’t because I’m dissatisfied with the game. This isn’t because I had some sort of epiphany. This isn’t because I stopped loving WoW. Au contraire, I freakin’ love this game. I’d love to play it and blog about it forever.

But.

There are only twenty-four hours in a day and between my full-time job, looking for a second job (I’d like to pay off my student loans sometime in this lifetime), art commissions, my rediscovered love of drawing/writing/creativity in general, and working on publishing this NaNoWriMo novel of mine (yes, I’m serious about it), my time spent WoWing has dwindled and dwindled and dwindled and this blog has been sorely neglected and after doing a lot of thinking about it, I think that this is the best thing to do.

I like to think I’ll come back later when I have more time. Cataclysm, maybe. Or maybe before that. Or maybe after that. Who knows, really? Now is just a rather busy time in my life and I’ve gotta re-focus for a bit.

Before you ask, yes, I’ll keep blogging. Just not about WoW. I’ll write about Linux, and fish, and… uh… more about fish… *watches subscriber numbers plummet* … ANYWAYS, I’ll talk more about that when the time actually comes.

That’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that I almost decided to just go about my business and blog as usual and then sometime next week make my super-dramatic “Bye guys!” post. But that would feel too– not really dishonest, I guess, but I dunno. It would feel like I was keeping up a facade and pretending things were all honky-dory until D-Day. That doesn’t seem very Pike-ish.

Instead, in the vein of people who think funerals are too depressing and do “life celebration” things instead, I want to share my last days of WoW with you guys, and keep blogging about it as long as I can.

So, I’m making a WoW Bucket List. A list of things I want to do before my WoW sub kicks the bucket. In no particular order…

  • Get my warlock to 40 and nab my epic mount. This shouldn’t be difficult; she’s level 38 and pretty much completely rested.
  • Run said warlock through Orgrimmar and do RFC.  See, she’s well on her way to having the Classic Dungeonmaster achievement, but the new LFG wasn’t introduced until she was past RFC level, so it’s conspicuously missing and it bugs me.  This must be remedied.
  • Make an attempt to solo Attumen again.  Last time I tried, I didn’t have a turtle (for Shell Shield) and I didn’t have the three extra pet talent points that I previously had to stick into Avoidance.  Also I didn’t have the new and improved Misdirect.  I still don’t know how well I’ll do since I lack 2-piece T5, but it’s worth one more shot.
  • See the world.  In the event that I don’t come back before Cataclysm, I want to re-visit the Azeroth I fell in love with almost three years ago.  I’ll bring my camera– er, Print Screen button.  Maybe I’ll go for the Explorer Achievement or something.
  • Do something about my poor druid’s gear.  She still  has the mace from Heroic Nexus.  And a level 77 blue offhand.  You know, next to her ToC25 epics.  I dunno if I can give her a complete makeover in seven days but who knows?
  • Do some good ol’ Burning Crusade dungeons via LFG on my level 61 hunter Althalor.  I would’ve liked to get him to level 70 before the Final Log-Off but I don’t think I have enough time, so I’ll do a couple of old favorite instances and call it good.
  • Make some pocket change on various characters and dump it in their respective guild banks. Also, make sure I don’t have anything laying around in the AH.
  • Run Molten Core, get the Leaf, and do the Rhok quest.  …okay, so that probably won’t happen.  I can dream, though.
  • Kill Arthas?  …nah, this probably won’t happen either, but I won’t lose sleep over it.  I’m content with my WotLK experience.
  • Comb through all the billions of drafts I have laying around in the WordPress dashboard and publish the good ones.  (I probably have enough of these to continue “blogging about WoW” for a good few weeks after the subscription expires >.>) …okay, so that one wasn’t exactly game-related.

Hmm, that looks like a good start. Toss me some others that you think I should add!

Dang.

So now I’m sitting here feeling like this cartoon, wondering if I should post this or not. I can already feel myself starting to get all sappy and this isn’t even the sappy post yet.

Ah screw it *hits publish, then runs away before she starts to second guess herself again*