Friday, November 26, 2010

Tabards

Patch 4.0.3

Ok, I'd like my 50 [Champion Seals] back please, Blizzard.

I bought a [Stormwind Tabard] from the Stormwind Quartermaster, Corporal Arthur Flew located at the Argent Tournament grounds less than a week ago for 50 freaking [Champion Seals]. That's at least 3.5 days worth of dailies. :( And now we can purchase one for 8 silver. *grumps*

I hope that this tabard conversion is a bug and that the Champion Tabard will at least look different or do something special-er than the one we can now buy for 8 freaking silver from the City Quartermasters! DX

The Shattering of Azeroth

Patch 4.0.3

Well hello my friends! I'm just posting to say I'm still here plus a tiny update. I finally got a chance to login and explore Stormwind a little bit. The Shattering of Azeroth has happened and what a crazy huge difference it is even for the little tiny bit of exploring I got to do. Obviously some textures have been updated, new lighting has been added, and holy new quests!

I rolled a human warrior to 6 just to check out the starting zone quests and everything is just... different! I'm not exactly sure how to take this all in yet. But I think I'm gonna like it. (Once I get over missing everything.) :)

Fun Fact: The Shattering occurred on November 23, 2010, World of Warcraft's 6 year anniversary since it's release in the US on November 23rd in 2004.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Children of the Blood

Patch 4.0.3



Dedicated to my very good friend RavenSylphe.

These lyrics are an adaptation of the "translated lyrics" from the WoWwiki article on the original "Lament of the Highborne".

By the light, by the light of the sun.
Children of the blood.
The darkness is breaking through,
Children of the blood.
By the light.
Broken Blood Children
They are breaking through,
Blood Children,
By the light of the sun.

Broken Blood Children.
They are breaking through,
Blood Children,
By the light of the sun.
..of the sun.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Cataclysm: Pre-Launch Events

Lots of mammoths... in a mammosh pit.
Patch 4.0.1

I know I'm late to the party about a post on this "pre-event" stuff, but here it is. It's mostly just my opinion and experience so far, not a guide. :D

Phase 1
It all started November 7th with a round of fun quests in Stormwind (and I'm guessing Org for Horde) that introduced us to the Twilight's Hammer Cultists that are spreading the "Doomsday" message all over town. A few elemental rifts also began opening all over Azeroth and Outland and if you closed a rift (in an area fit for your character to level in) you'd get to turn in the Mysterious Device the rift left behind for some cash. Nuku and I were having so much fun hunting down rifts that we received the [Tripping the Rifts] achievement on the first night.. well technically the second night since it was 2am when we got it haha.

Phase 2
Started a couple days later unlocking some new quests in Ironforge. I'm not sure where your second phase was, my horde friends, but in my humble opinion Phase 2 was barely even a "phase" since there were very, very little new quests.. But I guess it was a phase since it was "PHASED" XD, having us hunt down angry earth elemental spirits that you could only see when you drink an elemental sapta. I did find this phase interesting in the fact that these Earth Elemental mobs exist in the same place as you, yet you can't see them without the buff.. I'm always amused by quests like this. *giggle* Yes, I'm easily amused.

Phase 3
I can't remember when this started but I sure am glad I told Nuku that we needed to do those quests yesterday or we would have missed out! Just another fun round of quests in Stormwind, capturing Twilight Cultist infiltrator's and interrupting their rituals at their "secret" locations within the city. I have to tell you, the part I found MOST amusing of this chain had nothing to do with the actual quests. I was so blown away at the texture of the ritual thingy I stared at it for a few minutes. It was the ritual that was happening in the abandoned building that resembles the SW bank in the Dwarven District.. The textures on the Ritual thingy compared to the textures on the walls of the building were like day and night. It's as if the "vanilla" building textures are 256p x 256p resolution and the new textures are something like 1024 x 1024. XD Pretty. Anyway...

Phase 4
So, the final phase of the Elemental Invasion has started today and if you haven't noticed, then you've likely not been logged on at all today because trade has been hopping with plenty of, "INV PLZ" and "WHEN IS THE NEXT INVASION??!?!" I realized later that there is no quest for the invasion so it doesnt matter if you're in a raid group or not.. It only helps to keep track of where the majority of people are fighting.

Here's how the invasions work:
In Stormwind - At the start, everyone who can help, grabs Sandbags to start placing at specifically marked locations. Objective notifications appear in the top center of your screen (or wherever your PvP/zone objectives normally show up for you depending on your UI.) When all the sandbag locations have been uhm.. sandbagged *giggle* Wind and Water elementals spawn all over the city. The key is to close every rift in each flagged section of the city (marked on your map) to secure the locations, and to free a certain number of trapped citizens within each area. Once the city is secure, portals in the Trade District open to the "perpetrators" lairs: Prince Sarsarun from (a place resembling) Ahn'Qiraj who is responsible for the air elementals and Kai'ju Gahz'rilla in Zul'Farrak for the water elementals. (But at this point you can queue for all four bosses, I'll name the other 2 in a moment.)

In Ironforge - At the start, this is just like in Stormwind, but the only difference is they are "wall reinforcements" instead of sandbags and the elements are Earth and Fire. When you've secured the city, the portals open in the Commons to the ones responsible for the Earth and Fire elementals: Crown Princess Theradras of our beloved instance Mauradon and Grand Ambassador Flamelash of Blackrock Depths.

These Event bosses are available in the dungeon finder for only about an hour after the portals open and then they do not reappear in the dungeon finder until the next invasion occurs. And I do believe that the bosses pertaining to the certain elements are inaccessible if we fail to secure the cities, as in, if IF was not secured but SW was, then only the Wind and Water bosses will be available for example. But I'm not exactly sure, so don't quote me on that. XD

Conclusion
I'm having a freakin' blast with the pre-launch events and I am so happy to be a part of it before our world is changed forever!!!! XD

Friday, November 12, 2010

Cosplay Update: The Stilt Saga

Patch 4.0.1

Design © GiR Hargis 2010
I haven't really done anything at all with my Isolte cosplay idea ever since everything fell through the cracks with Weta and the digitigrade stilts. But recently, I found a super cool guy on YouTube, WizardGiR, who is a welder, engineer, and fabricator of sorts. I contacted him via Facebook and as of last week, I've found myself a fabricator for completely custom digitigrade stilts! I sent in the measurements he asked for and he quoted a completion date for sometime around the end of February. I'm super excited to finally have a shot at making the dreanei cosplay of my dreams, but I don't want to say too much for fear of jinxing it somehow.

I'll post updates as GiR brings them to me. I'm really excited to be working with such a cool DIY'er (do-it-yourself'er) because I've seen some of his other work and they've turned out to be nothing short of amazing. My stilts will only bee the third pair he's ever built, but that's another exciting factor in that I get to see what improvements (if any) that he can make upon his last design. But srsly, there's nothing that I know of needing improvement on his last pair, so even if mine aren't all that different, I'm positive I'll be happy with them.

Here's some news that I'm not sure what to do with though..

Image © GiR Hargis 2010
Kim Graham, the inventor of the Weta Legs, sent out an email just today about how her co-inventors in the states have secured a contract with a manufacturing company in the UK on a new digitigrade stilt design... She says the release of the new stilts is allocated for February-March 2011, just about the time that GiR quoted completion of my stilts. There's a part of me that is pretty pissed off that it's just "my luck" to have this news hit me after I've already found a fabricator... But there's a larger part of me that is pleased with my decision to find a custom fabricator for the pure fact that these stilts will fit me.

Well, that's pretty much all I have on the costume update. OH, wait! Maybe you all can help me? I'm still not sure what "gear set" to use for the costume, so if you can throw me some ideas I'd appreciate it. The ONLY requirement I'm asking for is PANTS, NO SKIRTS! Cuz I wanna show off these stilts/legs as MUCH as possible. XD Thanks for reading my long boring post... And I'm looking forward to your costume suggestions!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Just Keep Swimming

Patch 4.0.1

I <3 glitches that lead to funnier glitches.. Is "funnier" even a word? Hehe, well here's one bug I haven't been too fond of lately: When you dismount from a flyer, your toon gets stuck INDEFINITELY in the swimming animation 'til you log out. I FRAPS'd it this time only because Nuku asked, "Hey Love, what happens when you go into Ghost Wolf?"... Hilarity ensued.